UN JOINT PROGRAMME TO ENHANCE GENDER EQUALITY IN GEORGIA MPTF OFFICE GENERIC FINALPROGRAMME1 NARRATIVE REPORT REPORTING PERIOD: FROM 1/12/2011 TO 15/11/2015 Country, Locality(s), Priority Area(s) / Strategic Programme Title & Project Number Results2 Programme Title: UN Joint Program to Country/Region: Georgia Enhance Gender Equality in Georgia Priority area/ strategic results Programme Number: 00081311 MDGs, UNDAF Priority 2: Democratic MPTF Office Project Reference Number: Development 00081625 Participating Organization(s) Implementing Partners UNDP, UN Women, UNFPA Please refer to Annex 1
Programme/Project Cost (US$) Programme Duration Total approved budget as Overall Duration (months) 47.5 per project document: $ 5,857,182 Start Date (dd.mm.yyyy) 01.12.2011 MPTF /JP Contribution3: UNDP $ 2,446,083 UN Women $ 2,473,982 Original End Date4 (dd.mm.yyyy) 30.11.2014 UNFPA $ 937,117 AA Fee $ 59,164 Actual End date5(dd.mm.yyyy) 15.11. 2015
Have agency(ies) operationally Yes No closed the Programme in its(their) system? Other Contributions Swedish Development $ 5,916,426 Expected Financial Closure date6: October 2016 Cooperation (Sida)
TOTAL: $ 5,916,426 Programme Assessment/Review/Mid-Term Report Submitted By
1 The term “programme” is used for programmes, joint programmes and projects. 2 Strategic Results, as formulated in the Strategic UN Planning Framework (e.g. UNDAF) or project document; 3 The MPTF/JP Contribution is the amount transferred to the Participating UN Organizations – see MPTF Office GATEWAY 4 As per approval of the original project document by the relevant decision-making body/Steering Committee. 5 If there has been an extension, then the revised, approved end date should be reflected here. If there has been no extension approved, then the current end date is the same as the original end date. The end date is the same as the operational closure date which is when all activities for which a Participating Organization is responsible under an approved MPTF / JP have been completed. As per the MOU, agencies are to notify the MPTF Office when a programme completes its operational activities. Please see MPTF Office Closure Guidelines. 6 Financial Closure requires the return of unspent balances and submission of the Certified Final Financial Statement and Report.
Page 1 of 58 Evaluation Evaluation Completed Name: Shombi Sharp X Yes Date: 30/04/2015 Title: DRR Evaluation Report - Attached Participating Organization (Lead): UNDP X Yes Date: 30/04/2015 Email address: [email protected]
Page 2 of 58 ACCRONYMS
AVNG Anti-Violence Network of Georgia CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women CSO Civil Society Organization DEVAW Declaration on Elimination of Violence Against Women DV Domestic Violence DV Council Inter-agency Council Implementing Measures to Eliminate Domestic Violence DV Law 2006 Law of Georgia on Elimination of Domestic Violence, Protection and Support to its Victims DV NAP National Action Plan on Elimination of Domestic Violence, Protection and Assistance of Victims of Domestic Violence 2013-2015 FBO Faith-Based Organizations GBSS Gender Based Sex Selection GD Coalition “Georgia Dream” GE Gender Equality GEC Gender Equality Council of the Parliament of Georgia GEL Georgian Lari (national currency unit) Geostat National Statistics Office of Georgia GRU Georgian Rugby Union ICPD International Conference on Population and Development ICPDV Interagency Council for Prevention of Domestic Violence Istanbul Convention Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence LGBT Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual MDGs Millennium Development Goals MoA Ministry of Agriculture MES Ministry of Education and Science MESD Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development MFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs MIA Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia MoJ Ministry of Justice of Georgia MoLHSA Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Assistance of Georgia MOU Memorandum of Understanding MP Member of Parliament NAP National Action Plan NGO Non-Governmental Organization NRM National Referral Mechanism PDO Public Defender’s Office of Georgia PSA Public service announcement SAA Standard Administrative Agency SRH&RR Sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights State Fund State Fund for Protection and Assistance of Victims of Human Trafficking and Domestic Violence TOT Training of Trainers UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNFPA United Nations Population Fund UN Women United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women VAWG Violence against Women and Girls WHO World Health Organization WIC Women’s Information Center
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FINAL PROGRAMME REPORT FORMAT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This Consolidated Final Report for the UN Joint Programme to Enhance Gender Equality in Georgia covers the period from 1 December 2011 to 15 November 2015. This report is in fulfillment of the reporting requirements set out in the Standard Administrative Arrangement (SAA) concluded with the Donor. In line with the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by Participating UN Organizations, the Final Report is consolidated based on information, data and financial statements submitted by Participating Organizations. It is neither an evaluation of the Joint Programme nor an assessment of the performance of the Participating Organizations. The report provides the Steering Committee and the Donor with a comprehensive overview of achievements and challenges associated with the Joint Programme.
The UN Joint Programme to Enhance Gender Equality in Georgia has achieved substantial results in response to the planned outcomes of the program. The efforts supported and taken forward by the implementing agencies – UNDP, UN Women and UNFPA separately and jointly have contributed to the attainment of the goals as set forth by the UN Development Assistance Framework (2011-2015), in line with Georgia’s international and local commitments to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action and the Government’s Action Plans.
The highlights of the Joint Program achievements:
Inclusion of the gender related National Action Plans in the Government’s Human Rights Strategy and Action Plan Adoption of the Domestic Violence National Action Plan 2013-2015 Adoption of the Gender Equality National Action Plan 2014-2016 Adoption of the National Youth Policy and Action Plan integrating gender equality and Youth SRH&RR Securing of political will to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on combatting and prevention of violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) and initiating relevant amendments to the Georgian legislation for adoption by the Parliament Adoption of the MOF Manual for Program Budgeting, incorporating gender indicators Over 1,300 rural women improved capacity and knowledge and actively engaged in solving local problems through program’s VET, community mobilization and women farmers association activities Locally elected women better equipped with skills to successfully advocate for issues through Women Councilors Forum and its Task Force Taking over of funding of the two DV shelters (Kutaisi and Tsnori) by the Government of Georgia Increased awareness and disclosure of DV Increased involvement of men and boys in initiatives aimed at EVAWG – men setting up a movement CHVEN (WE) against violence and for gender equality; Successfully demonstrating the need to involve men in the gender equality debate in Georgia Generating quality knowledge resources for informed decision-making and advocacy with policy and decision-makers using hard evidence on Gender-biased Sex Selection, Men and Gender Relations Bringing the importance of the healthy lifestyle education in secondary schools on the forefront of the Ministry of Education and Science agenda through evidence-based advocacy and technical advice
Page 4 of 58 Promoting youth to be actively engaged in shaping social development, challenging harmful norms and values, advocating to influence policies that affect their lives through participatory youth forums and innovative youth festivals Increased scope and focus on public awareness campaigns, including gender stereotypes, women’s political and economic rights, gender-based violence, domestic violence, reproductive health and rights, prevention of GBSS, male involvement, HIV/AIDS, etc.
The Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office (MPTF Office) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) serves as the Administrative Agent for the Joint Programme. The MPTF Office receives, administers and manages contributions from the Donor, and disburses these funds to the Participating UN Organizations in accordance with the decisions of Steering Committee. The Administrative Agent receives and consolidates program reports and submits to the Donor.
This report is presented in two parts. Part I is the Final Narrative Report and Part II is the Final Consolidated Financial Report.
I. Purpose
The overall goal of the programme is to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment through strengthening capacities in the government, civil society and communities. The overall goal is to be achieved by realization of the following outcomes: 1. Enhanced women’s political and economic empowerment (led by UNDP) 2. Creating an enabling environment to eliminate violence against women, especially domestic violence (DV) (led by UN Women) 3. Gender Equality advanced by creating enabling environment to realize Sexual and Reproductive Rights of population (led by UNFPA) The joint programme directly supports further realization of the women’s rights and gender equality commitments undertaken by Georgia at international as well as national levels and intends to upscale results achieved by the country with the support of the international community, including UN agencies, in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment through innovative initiatives.
The Joint Programme to Enhance Gender Equality in Georgia directly responds to the Millennium Development Goal 3 – Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women. Within the UN Development Assistance Framework for Georgia the programme and its outcomes fall under the Thematic Area 1 – Poverty Reduction, Outcome 3: Vulnerable groups enjoy improved access to quality health, education, legal aid, justice and other essential social services and Thematic Area 2 – Democratic Development, Outcome 1 – Enhanced protection and promotion of human rights, access to justice and gender equality.
II. Assessment of Program Results
i) Narrative Reporting on Results
Outcome 1. Enhanced women’s political and economic empowerment
Within the scope of the UNJP, UNDP served as a lead agent and main responsible party for implementation of activities and achievement of results under Outcome 1 and all the outputs therein. UNDP aimed to enhance women’s political and economic empowerment through advocating women’s increased participation in the policy making process and empowering them economically, thus setting up
Page 5 of 58 sound mechanisms for political and economic activism to collectively advance the gender equality agenda at national and grassroots levels.
In the area of women’s political empowerment, the UNJP aimed at the increased participation of women at decision making level, especially on elected positions. The program implementation coincided with two elections – parliamentary elections of 2012 and local self-governance elections of 2014.
The 2012 Parliamentary Elections were one of the most competitive over the last 20 years and it made it possible to measure the dynamics of women’s participation in nation-wide political affairs. Despite no considerable increase in the actual number of women in the Parliament7, their participation overall has doubled from 6% to 12%. Though only 11 women became MPs from party nominations, 7 won single mandate districts, which was the highest number in Georgian election history. While this may not be attributed solely to the support of the UNJP, it was nevertheless a result of coherent and persistent efforts of Sida and UN along with other organizations over the last decade. In the executive branch the proportion of women has not changed much, though, as perceived, women occupied rather key ministerial positions during the reporting period, such as justice, education, foreign affairs and defence.
The changes have yet fell behind at the local governance level. For the Local Self-Governance Elections in 2014 two major changes were implemented to the Local Governance Code – (1) the Mayors and Heads of Local Municipalities were elected directly and (2) seven self-governing cities were added. As a result, Georgia elected 12 Mayors, 71 Local Councils and 59 Heads of Municipalities. However, only one female Head of the Municipal Administration was elected in Tianeti.
For the Local Councils elections, several parties chose to qualify for the voluntary quota, which entails financial incentive for nominating women. In total 26.8% candidates were female that ran on the party lists and single-mandate districts. However, the percentage of actually elected women remained low at 11.6%, with only 0.6 % increase in comparison to previous elections.
The results of 2012 parliamentary and 2014 local elections showed that the voluntary quota (30% financial incentive for nominating 30% different sex representatives in every 10 of party lists) did not work effectively towards increasing women’s participation in politics. Consequently, during 2015 the Gender Equality Council of the Parliament of Georgia with the support of international and local organizations working on women’s political empowerment, launched advocacy campaign for introducing hard quota for the 2016 parliamentary and 2017 local elections.
The major achievement from the GE perspective during the program implementation was the adoption of the GE National Action Plan championed by the Gender Equality Council (GEC). UNJP supported NAP preparation process was a successful step towards increased ownership of the GEC and government agencies in mainstreaming gender equality in various spheres of state activities. It was a notable achievement of the GEC that for the first time the Supreme Council of Justice joined the GE efforts and provided contribution to the plan on gender mainstreaming in judiciary and disaggregation of data by sex. UNJP supported the GEC in tracking the progress of implementation and by the end of 2015 all activities were on target, with up to 40% completed activities.
Remarkable achievements were made by the targeted Municipalities in incorporating gender budgeting principles in drafting the 2014 and 2015 local budgets by improving resource allocation and the identification of beneficiaries. The set priorities better connected with the socio-economic and business development tasks. The share of social expenditures in the targeted sixteen Municipalities of Kakheti and Samegrelo in total increased from 6.7% to 7%. The range of improvements varied across the
7 The Parliament in Georgia has single chamber and consists of 150 Members. 77 are elected by proportional system through party lists and 73 majoritarians are elected by single-mandate districts.
Page 6 of 58 municipalities. Based on the success stories UNJP initiated set of discourses with various stakeholders to institutionalize gender principles in the budget preparation processes. As the result, Minister of Finance approved the new guidelines for drafting program budgets on 14 August 2015, which mandates government agencies to include gender indicators, where applicable.
The activism of target communities that spread in eight Municipalities of Kakheti and Samegrelo showed significant results through community mobilization efforts. The community groups identified local problems and submitted proposals to the respective Municipal Administrations to include specific projects in the local budget. In 2014 and 2015, 82 and 39 projects were approved and incorporated in the municipal budgets with total amounts of 6,232,620 GEL and 1,640,000 GEL respectively.
Output 1.1: Improved policy and institutional framework for advancing Gender Equality agenda
UNJP has extensively supported the Gender Equality Council of the Parliament. During 2012 UNJP engaged with the existing Chair of the GEC on monitoring the implementation of the Gender Equality National Action Plan 2011-2013 twice during the year. It is noteworthy that many of the activities prescribed by the Plan were not supported by the state budget financing. Within the budget allocations some agencies managed to implement only part of the activities. The achieved results in many instances were supported by donor and international organizations, as well as local NGOs.
The Program has provided a stimulus to Georgian government, specifically championed by the GEC, to organize a competent report for the CEDAW Fourth and Fifth Periodic Report for Georgia in April-May 2012. In consultations with government agencies, local and international NGOs and gender experts the Government’s report was completed and submitted to the CEDAW Commission by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by mid-2012.
Based on the results of the parliamentary elections in December 2012 the composition of the GEC has fully changed. UNJP provided technical assistance with the revisions of the GEC Charter and principles for membership. Throughout the program implementation UNJP provided numerous capacity building activities for the effective functioning of the Council – gender institutional mechanisms and their functions, gender analysis of laws, budget process and gender budgeting, communicating about gender principles and public image of the Council.
As part of capacity building of the Council in 2013, UNDP organized a study tour to Croatia, which joined EU in July of the same year. The GEC members had the opportunity to share experience with the Parliament of Croatia, Government’s Office for Equality, Public Defender, selected Ministries and Local Governance authorities in Zagreb and Zadar, and CSOs working on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
One of the main activities emphasized by the national stakeholders as an important part of gender mainstreaming was gender analysis of existing and draft legislation. The Gender Equality Council created a team of staffers from the Parliamentary Committees to coordinate gender analysis of draft legislation. UNDP provided extensive gender and legal drafting training for the staffers of each Parliamentary Committee (15 Committees) and lawyers from the Legal Departments of every Ministry (19 ministries). UNJP provided special training to the Budget Office of the Parliament of Georgia, in order to raise awareness and skills for analysing draft State Budget before its adoption. As part of the support for the GEC UNDP provided capacity building on gender equality for the Press Office of the Parliament and journalists accredited to the Parliament of Georgia. The activity aimed at improving coverage of GEC events and ensuring sensitive reporting on gender issues. In parallel, UNDP supported development of the Gender Equality Council web-page on the Parliament’s website.
Page 7 of 58 The main challenge before the newly elected GEC was preparation of the follow-up Gender Equality National Action Plan for 2014-2016. Review of the completion report for the GE NAP 2011-2013 provided an outright lesson to the new GEC, as well as new representatives from the executive that the upcoming process of the NAP elaboration was to be owned entirely by the government/parliament and the next NAP needed to be primarily solidified through the state financial commitments. The GEC was determined to launch and lead the process of drafting the next National Action Plan in 2013, and, lessons learned guided the decision-makers to avoid key challenges.
Adoption of the Gender Equality NAP 2014-2016 was an extensive and distinctive process for the Parliament of Georgia. The GEC invited all Ministries to draft individual sections, where within the assigned funding the agencies could include gender equality considerations or implement activities in support of promoting women’s rights. The eight sections of the NAP cover the main areas of work in line with the Beijing Platform of Action. Furthermore, the GEC deemed it important to recognize the need for higher involvement of women at the local level and devoted a special section to Regional Development. For the first time judiciary agreed to participate in the development of the NAP and provided input on disaggregating court data by sex and introducing gender mainstreaming. The commitment of the Ministry of Finance to include gender considerations in the programs outlined in the state budget was an achievement itself. Thought the new GE NAP was not supported by separate funding from the State Budget, each agency maximized gender mainstreaming within the respective allocations. The draft plan was presented to the donor and CSO communities, followed by integrating the comments and feedback in the document. The NAP was adopted on 24 January 2014. UNDP has supported the GEC during the entire process of drafting and consultations.
UNJP continued engagement with the GEC on monitoring the implementation of the GE NAP. As part of the Gender Week 2015 UNDP supported the Council in preparation and presentation of the first year Annual Report based on the inputs submitted by the implementing government agencies and independent bodies. It must be emphasized that the level of implementation was impressive, considering the fact that most activities were covered by the State Budget within the allocations; though, donor and NGO support still play an important role in the achievement of the results.
UNJP support for the Council also encompassed technical assistance and advocacy for various laws and regulations pertaining to improving gender equality in political, economic and social fields.
In the area of women’s political empowerment, on the outlook of the Local Elections 2014 the gender quotas remained an active topic of discussion among parties and the Parliament. The Gender Equality Council closely worked with the Inter-faction Working Group on Elections to further improve legislative assurance for women’s political involvement. The series of dialogues resulted in increasing the voluntary quota from 20% to 30% inclusion of different sex representatives on party lists with financial incentive rising from 10% to 30% additional budget funding for parties complying with the requirement.
As the voluntary quota provided by the election and political party legislation did not result in the increase of women’s political participation in both parliamentary and local elections, UNJP joined forces with the Gender Theme Group Task Force on women’s political empowerment, which includes international and local organizations (NDI, IRI, IFES, NIMD, Oxfam, WIC, Gender Network, Gender Justice, etc.). The Task Force unified efforts and jointly launched advocacy campaign to introduce hard quotas for the next elections (2016 parliamentary and 2017 local elections). The team closely worked with the GEC to meet with major parties, their leadership, Parliamentary Factions, members of Government. It organized conferences and events jointly to maintain single message and emphasis on ways for increasing numbers of women at decision making levels. At the high level conference during the Gender Week 2015, both President of Georgia and the Speaker of the Parliament openly supported introduction of the mandatory quota.
Page 8 of 58 In preparation of local elections, the Government of Georgia proposed new local governance reform to strengthen local decision making and decentralize financial and decision making powers. Gender Equality Council synchronized the gender analysis of the reform legislation with the drafting process of the NAP to better reflect the needs of men and women at the local level in both documents. With the support of UNJP the Council held discussions with the Working Group designing the local governance reform under the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure and reviewed the reform from gender perspective. Respective recommendations were also produced.
The Parliament of Georgia passed amendments to the Labor Code and Law on Civil Service to increase paid maternity leave from four to six months and respective compensation from 600 GEL to 1,000 GEL. Additionally, the Minister of Justice followed up with the initiative to launch consultations on further improving regulations concerning women in the Labor Code. UNDP held an extensive forum with NGOs and other stakeholders on women’s rights in labor legislation where draft recommendations were agreed upon to be followed up with the Parliament and the Ministry of Justice. The first draft amendments were presented to a large group of stakeholders in October 2013. UNDP provided special study on maternity leave and respective comments and suggestions on the draft.
The Gender Equality Council continued to lead coordination on the implementation of the GE National Action Plan. One of the major directions encompasses gender budgeting activities. As part of gender budgeting component under Output 2, UNJP and its partner organization Municipal Service Providers Association (MSPA) organized a discussion on gender budgeting for the GEC, Budget and Finance Committee of the Parliament, Budget Office of the Parliament, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure and representatives of select Municipalities of Kakheti and Samegrelo. After presenting the successful cases of gender sensitive local budgets, the Minister of Finance, agreed to start the process of incorporating gender considerations in the program budgeting manuals and the Government’s Annual Budget Report. As the draft budget law was presented to the Parliament, in response to the GEC request the Budget Office prepared gender analysis of the draft and submitted it to the Council. At the budget hearing GEC members stated comments and recommendations followed by the Minister of Finance reiterating commitment to include gender considerations in the program budgeting processes. The Minister followed up on his commitment and on 14 August 2015 the new Manual for Drafting State and Local Budgets was adopted mandating government and local self-governance bodies to include gender indicators for the respective programs, where applicable.
After Elections of 2012 UNJP championed the broad effort unifying the donors and international organizations working on gender equality in outlining a set of recommendations for “institutional set-up of the national gender equality mechanism”. One of the most distinguished results of the advocacy efforts was the commitment of the new Prime Minister of Georgia to introduce a position of Gender Equality Representative in the Government administration. In the beginning of 2013, the PM has indeed appointed the renowned human rights and NGO activist as the representative in human rights and gender issues. The new Advisor actively engaged in drafting the Human Rights Strategy for the Government, where gender equality became a substantial part.
In 2014 the Government of Georgia adopted the National Human Rights Strategy (NHRS) 2014-2020 and its Action Plan, where a separate Chapter 14 is devoted to gender equality. The HR NAP incorporates the government’s obligations provided in GE, DV and 1325 NAPs. Subsequently, the Government created Inter-Agency Coordination Council with Secretariat to oversee and coordinate the implementation of the HR NAP. The Secretariat was to become the institutional mechanism at the executive branch, closely working with the GEC on gender equality issues. Considering that each NAP envisaged a separate coordinating structure with different composition, UNJP participating organizations under the auspices of the UN Resident Coordinator launched a joint advocacy effort with the Government Administration to create one institutional mechanism that would manage harmonized implementation of all gender equality related activities.
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One of the major challenges in the field of gender equality work remains the lack of coordination among the CSOs working on women’s empowerment issues. The need for better cooperation has become more critical in recent years, since donor community ceased to continuously fund NGO networks. Four active organizations united around the initiative to conduct a large CSO forum aimed at coordination, cooperation and consolidation (3C) of resources and efforts in Spring 2014. Within its mandate to support CSOs UNJP embraced the initiative with primary objective to assist incorporation of gender organizations into the wider NGO community. The forum brought together the CSOs that work on gender equality and women’s issues, as well as other organizations that implement gender components in lager programs. Participants discussed the major challenges the NGO community faces, acknowledged the need to unite around advocacy efforts in support of the issues that are relevant for the gender equality agenda. As the result the organizations agreed on the next step to formalize the structure of the forum and finalize the common goals and objectives to effectively utilize joint efforts of the organizations united in the Forum to achieve more balanced and equal society. Though the conference attendance was impressive, CSOs failed to follow-up on the initiative. Therefore, UNJP made a decision to discontinue its support, which was also considered appropriate by the independent evaluation of the program.
In line with the need to increase awareness of gender issues and accessibility of relevant information, UNDP supported the strengthening of a gender web portal – www.ginsc.net (Gender Information Network of South Caucasus) run by a local NGO – Women’s Information Center, which unites gender equality related information not only for Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, but also from the north Caucasus and Black Sea countries. The portal was upgraded in 2012 and is now more user-friendly, enabling its existing and new users to easily search for the required information.
Throughout 2012 – 2015 years, media and public campaigns carried out by UNJP made a breakthrough in raising public awareness on issues of gender equality among Georgian society, business circles and political elites of the country. The question of economic and political participation of women became a hot topic, enhanced by bespoke awareness campaigns and specifically targeted public events.
In order to examine existing views on the roles of men and women in family life, business and politics, a nation-wide comprehensive and highly acknowledged research “Public Perceptions on Gender Equality in Politics and Business” research on gender stereotypes in Georgian society was carried out in 20138. The study revealed most common gender stereotypes and served as a baseline for further communication strategy.
A vast communication campaign “Change Your Mind” was designed to target these specific gender misconceptions. The campaign consisted of three waves. In November 2013 the first part – “Breakdown the Stereotypes” was launched. Stencils referring to clichés revealed by the study were designed and painted on the sidewalks of Tbilisi with average of 700,000 reach9. The campaign was followed by the Facebook page “Change Your Mind” 10 that received the record number of 30,000 likes within a month making it one of the most popular social campaign sites in Georgia ever with more than 46,000 followers by the end of 2015. UNJP also developed special infographics highlighting key messages, which were extensively replicated and reposted by print and online media.
The second phase of the campaign was focused on the shift in perception of the role of men and women in a family, politics and business and it was extended onto main towns of Kakheti and Samegrelo regions.
8 http://www.ge.undp.org/content/georgia/en/home/library/democratic_governance/public-perceptions-on-gender-equality-in- politics-and-business.html 9 http://www.ge.undp.org/content/georgia/en/home/ourperspective/ourperspectivearticles/2016/04/04/how-to-campaign-for- gender-equality.html 10 https://www.facebook.com/sheicvale/?fref=ts
Page 10 of 58 The main message was “Perceive the Equality”11. To increase the national reach and reinforce the message, three PSAs highlighting the advantages of the gender balance were aired through the national and regional TV channels. Launching of TV campaign was accompanied by the second wave of stenciling big walls in the busy districts of Tbilisi.
Final event of the campaign was held during the Gender Week in March 2014 in public space of the capital. Participants were invited on the open stage to express their opinions about gender equality and shoot the paint “bombs” onto the wall stenciled with the gender stereotypes. Short videos of the participants’ speeches were created and posted on the campaign Facebook page that powered the discussions online.
In order to promote best practices and policies in equal treatment of women and men in private and public organizations, the UN JP held The Gender Equality Awards in 2014 and 201512. More than 60 high- profile business companies as well as central and local government bodies competed for the Award. During both events the Award Ceremony made a major event attracting top officials and business circles with huge public attention and excellent press.
UNDP also organized three annual celebrations of the International Day of Rural Women on 15 October in 2013 - 2015. Each of the events brought together more than 60 women involved in the community projects and women farmers from different regions of the country and made an excellent opportunity to voice the issue of women empowerment to officials, press and general public.
UNJP launched an annual tradition of Gender Week celebrated in March with a line of communication activities and public events highlighting gender issues. The highlight of Gender Week in 2015 was a campaign for parliamentary quotas “More Women in Politics”13. Main public buildings - President’s Palace, Parliament and Government Administration - in the capital were lit with video projections featuring messages on gender equality with a background colour indicating the attitude towards quotas (green supportive, yellow undecided) represented by specific state institutions.
The President announced 2015 as the Year of Women. The gender equality agenda in November culminated in high-level international conference in Tbilisi organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the support by UNDP with UN Women, UNFPA and EU. Tbilisi Declaration was adopted reaffirming support for gender equality principles within the European Neighbourhood Policy region. Federica Mogherini of EU and Cihan Sultanoglu of UNDP took part together with Prime Minister, reinforcing commitments to gender equality on Georgia and ENP political agendas.
Four years of well-designed and precisely targeted communication and outreach activities of the UNJP made a significant contribution to the process of change in gender equality perception in Georgia. This was proved by the rapid increase of the indicator - number of public statements made by high level state officials on GE issues. Planned target of an annual increase by 10% was exceeded each year, however 2015 seen an extraordinary rise of the indicator - by 135%. The reason behind it was that 2015 was announced Year of Women by the President of Georgia that gave UNJP an excellent opportunity to advocate for women empowerment. Thus, gender equality became a hot issue in public discussion in Georgia, powered by well-tailored communication and public activities.
Output 1.2: Gender responsive policies applied by key national and local authorities
11 https://www.facebook.com/sheicvale/videos 12 http://www.ge.undp.org/content/georgia/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2015/07/06/gender-equality-in-business-and- politics.html 13 http://www.gurianews.com/_/left_wide/25572_67_ka/meti_qali_politikaSi.html
Page 11 of 58 Output 2 places a focus on streamlining Gender equality across institutions at national and local levels. In the first years of implementation the programme has made a particular emphasis on supporting collection of data at the national level for gender sensitive policy making and a remarkable progress has been demonstrated by the National Statistics Service of Georgia – Geostat. Gender statistics have been key component of the development agenda in gender equality since 1998 and brochure “Men and Women in Georgia”14 has been published regularly with the support of different donors. It should be noted that while preparing each consecutive publication the Geostat added new data that brought the information closer to the global statistical standards. The Service has established a system to publicize regularly gender- disaggregated data through their web-site. They have also made a commitment to update and improve the gender-disaggregated data publicity on a regular basis. Notably, the UNJP has advocated and achieved this without allocating any financial resources, as Geostat has managed to accomplish this with their own internal data and resources.
Although, when it comes to the more comprehensive coverage of the men and women statistics, that require search and research of additional (not internally available) data, Geostat still required some support and UNJP has initiated cooperation aiming at updating “women and men” publication with the most recent data. Thus, the 2013 publication among others included new topics, such as gender composition of the political parties and gender composition of the majoritarian candidates registered for the parliamentary elections of 1 October 2012, etc. With the support of UNDP, the Geostat incorporated all information collected for “Men and Women in Georgia” brochures since 1998 into the searchable database (PC-Axis) on its website15, which is regularly updated by GEOSTAT at no additional external funding. Thus, it can be assumed that the problem of availability of gender disaggregated data has been sustainably resolved for the key statistical indicators.
Through the NAP development process new partners emerged in the Executive branch of the Government demonstrating interest and commitment to actively engage in gender equality work. Notably, Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure and Ministry of Agriculture along with the existing partner Ministry of Education and Science actively engaged in women’s problems at municipal and local levels. As an example, the only Ministry to appoint a Gender Officer was the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure. In contrast, Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development relatively disengaged from active involvement. In response to the partners’ request, UNJP provided ad hoc training in gender budgeting for the 15 representatives of Financial Departments of MES, MESD and MRDI in 2014.
Implementation of the NAP presented a new opportunity for the UNJP to engage with the judiciary on gender mainstreaming issues. UNDP and UN Women together with USAID jointly provided the training of trainers (TOT) for select judges in order to introduce an elective course on gender equality and violence against women within the curriculum of the High School of Justice.
In order to support women’s political empowerment at the local level, the Women Councilors’ Form was re-established, which unites female elected officials from all Municipalities. Through its partner organization Municipal Service Providers Association (MSPA), UNDP supported the Forum, which on its first convention elected a Task Force.
Though initially the capacity building activities for local female councilors were anticipated for Kakheti and Samegrelo Regions, considering the low number of women in local elected bodies (182 women, approximately 10% of elected local officials nationwide), UNJP supported MSPAs initiative to run training modules at national scale. The members of the Women Councilors’ Forum were offered to enroll in the Leadership School and 94 women councillors graduated three modules – LG and Skills for local officials, leadership – how to influence without authority and strategies for adapting to the changes. As the
14 http://geostat.ge/index.php?action=page&p_id=1172&lang=eng 15 http://91.208.144.188/Menu.aspx?rxid=c8ca81e9-2824-4c5b-a46a- c80202913531&px_db=Database&px_type=PX&px_language=en&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
Page 12 of 58 Joint Program strived to encourage more women to run for re-election a fourth module – election campaigning skills was offered in spring 2014.
In June 2014 the local elections brought 243 (11.6%) women to the local councils – Sakrebulos, among the total number of mandates of 2,084 in 71 Municipalities and Self-governing Cities. Only 32 females got re-elected, where 21 were the graduates of the Leadership School. Such turnover of the elected officials created greater need for continuing the Leadership School for the newly elected women Councillors.
In 2015, UNDP and MSPA organized the second National Conference of the Women Councillor’s Forum for the newly elected members. As a result, 187 women Councilors united for better local governance and gender equality in local authorities. The re-elected members of the Forum presented the annual report of the Task Force and emphasized the benefits of uniting efforts and sharing experience within the Forum. The conference participants had the opportunity to learn about the reforms and programs implemented by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure and Ministry of Agriculture. Intensive Q&A sessions followed each presentation, giving the Councillors direct opportunity to get information on the specific problems of their communities. The Congress elected a new Task Force uniting 24 women from all regions of Georgia. The new Task Force and Forum members were offered the Leadership School and 46 Councillors graduated courses.
Strengthening the Forum’s Task Force remained a priority throughout the Program implementation. The first team of Councilors conducted regional meetings to identify priority issues common for all local authorities for further advocacy. The main problems identified were related to local self-governance reform, pre-school education, social security and water supply. These topics were brought to the attention of the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs and Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure during working meetings.
Through MSPA, UNDP has supported review of the draft Local Self-Governance Code by the Task Force. The women Councilors outlined set of comments and recommendations, which with the support of the UNJP were reviewed and discussed with the Minister of Regional Development and Infrastructure and the ministry representatives leading the drafting process. The Councilors presented practical issues from the implementation perspective at the local level. MRDI considered almost all their comments. This was the first substantial achievement of the Task Force and proof that by uniting women Councilors can make their voices heard.
Pre-school education was another issue, where women Councilors have made a serious impact at the policy level. Through consultation meetings with the GEC members and the representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science, the Task Force managed to raise the issue on the political agenda. In 2015 GEC member and the Chair of the Human Rights Committee in partnership with the Deputy Minister of Education drafted a package of new law on pre-school education with corresponding regulations on standards for hygiene, staffing, etc. The Task Force members were invited to the respective working group. Women Councilors participated in discussions and the public discussions in different regions.
The second major component for working with the local authorities included support for introducing gender budgeting in local governance. As the result, the 2014 budget plans significantly improved in terms of determining the resources allocation and identification of beneficiaries. The first step entailed gender analysis of the local budgets of 16 target Municipalities in Kakheti and Samegrelo for 2013. The approach used by MSPA, included capacity building of local financial officers, step-by-step coaching in designing gender indicators and drafting municipal budgets. The set priorities became more specific and connected with the socio-economic and business development tasks. Though there are variations in the level of responsiveness among the target Municipalities, the overall improvement is tangible. In Kakheti municipal share of social expenditures increased from 6.7% to 7%. Significant reduction (by 1.5 % in
Page 13 of 58 Kakheti and by 7% in Samegrelo) of expenditures for general public services (representative and executive bodies) can be considered as substantial achievement, which allowed diverting municipal funds towards the socially oriented priorities. Consequently, allocations increased towards housing and communal services (in Dedoplistskaro by up to 40%), culture and sports (in Gurjaani by up to 170%), education (in Zugdidi by up to 200%) and social protection services (in Poti by up to 66%).
UNDP in cooperation with MSPA followed up on the successful introduction of gender budgeting principles in the targeted 16 municipalities. Set of discourses were organized in order to expand the experience and positive results with other regions. Elected Heads of Municipalities and Chairs of Sakrebulos were invited to presentations in Kutaisi for Western Georgia Municipalities and Rustavi for Eastern Georgia Municipalities. The presented analysis of the implemented intervention showed that budgets has become results-oriented, and can be qualitatively evaluated; the financial plans focuse on the identification of benefits. It has become more transparent and understandable to the public, focuses on the goals, needs and opportunities and serves the people's interests and provide them with information about the targeted beneficiaries and size of expenditures. At the final stage the results were presented to the GEC and the Ministy of Finance.
In cooperation with the Disability Center of the Public Defender’s Office, UNDP conducted research16 and focus groups in five regions for the IDP women and girls with disabilities on improving conditions and integration of PwDs. As a result, the Center submitted 12 recommendations to different state and regional authorities regarding the violation of PwD rights and all twelve were considered by the respective agency.
In December 2013 Georgia ratified the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities. UNDP continued cooperation with the Disability Center. A study was conducted on implementation of the 6th article of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities – existing challenges and perspective, which sets special requirements for the signatory countries with the aim to protect and realize the rights of women (girls) with disabilities. The study covered four regions: Kakheti, Samegrelo, Imereti and Mtskheta-Mtianeti.
As a result of UNDP advocacy, the Disability Center was transformed in the permanent Department under the PDO and the UNDP consultant was invited to head the Department.
Output 1.3: Local women empowered economically and politically through better opportunities for income generation and political participation
Women’s economic empowerment is a prerequisite and enabling factor for increased equality, self-respect and civic participation. Recognizing that labor market outcomes present an excellent yardstick for measuring women’s situation in society, the Joint Programme supported promotion of gender equality by implementing an innovative approach to women’s economic and civic empowerment through enabling them to free up some care-giving time, providing technical/business skills, creating employment and entrepreneurship opportunities and connecting targeted women in Kakheti and Samegrelo regions with the respective local authorities. Various pillars construct the full chain for economic and civic empowerment of women including mobilizing women and fostering their leadership skills, linking them with the local authorities, vocational education and training, provision of small financial support and helping women to improve their social lives.
UNJP supported three vocational education and training centers in Kakheti and Samegrelo: Kachreti Vocational College “Aisi” in Kakheti, Vocational College “Pazisi” (Poti) and Zugdidi State Teaching
16 http://www.ge.undp.org/content/georgia/en/home/library/democratic_governance/rights-of-women-with-disabilities.html
Page 14 of 58 University (including its Senaki agricultural VET) in Samegrelo. 887 women participated in UNJP supported courses and overall 1875 farmers (1185 women and 690 men) were provided with consultations at the Extension Service Centers in Kachreti and Senaki.
The vocational courses aimed at providing relevant skills to the women groups for improving their income generating capacities in agricultural professions for farmers running individual or family farms; as well as teaching new professions to increase their employability. The selection of professions was based on the local labour market surveys conducted by VETs. Along the standard courses in dairy production and fruit/vegetable cultivation and processing, sewing, restaurant and hotel business, waiter and cook courses, UNJP supported courses in traditionally unfeminine professions of Cisco Administrator and Electrician. The average employment rate of the graduated participants is 77%. As a result of productive consultations and enhanced motivation of women farmers, several agricultural cooperatives were created in Kakheti and Samegrelo on the basis of Senaki Vocational College (branch of the Zugdidi Teaching University).
In 2013 UNJP supported establishment of the Association of Women Farmers of Kakheti (AWFK) by seven active graduates of Kachreti Extension Center. The Association aims to support capacity building of women farmers, protection of the property and other constitutional rights, as well as to strengthen their financial independence. At present the Association unites 182 members of women farmers, mainly rural women from Kakheti and also from several regions of Georgia. Throughout the program UNJP provided extensive capacity building to the Association through technical assistance in drafting the charter, organization’s strategy and annual action plans; organizing consultation meetings and encouraging development of the Association Board and staff. As the Association expanded it faced new challenges and moved to the next level in its development. In 2015 UNJP supported the first Convention of the Association17 and coincided the event with the International Rural Women’s Day celebrations on 15 October. The Convention approved revised Charter and new Strategy and elected the new Board of the Association.
Most extensive and broad component under the Outcome 1 was the support UNJP provided for the community mobilization activities. UNJP partnered with the consortium of Georgian NGOs - Center for Strategic Research and Development of Georgia (CSRDG), Civil Development Association (GCDA) from Lagodekhi and Association Atinati from Zugdidi.
The activities were concentrated in eight municipalities of Kakheti and Samegrelo18. A study of the target communities was carried out by using a combined methodology, of population survey and focus group discussions. In depth research methodology (questionnaire, survey design and the format of focus group discussions) was developed for comprehensive analysis. As a result, 26 community groups were selected uniting over 179 women (94 in Kakheti and 85 in Samegrelo). Series of trainings, consultations and meetings as well as establishing connections with local governments, businesses and civil society organizations have been carried out19.
Within the first year of implementation CSRDG started linking the community groups to the local budget development process. Each community group prepared at least three PowerPoint presentations on the most urgent problem of the community and proposal how to solve this issue, including required expenditures. Overall, 250 proposals (116 in Samegrelo and 134 in Kakheti) were submitted to the Municipal Authorities, where 82 projects were approved and included in the respective local budget. In 2014 community groups mobilized total funding of 6,232,620 GEL. The communities continued to engage with local authorities in 2015 and actively advocated for new projects. Consequently, 39 problems were included in local budgets mobilizing 1,640,000 GEL.
17 http://www.ge.undp.org/content/georgia/en/home/ourwork/democraticgovernance/successstories/women_farmers.html 18 Kvareli, Lagodekhi, Sagarejo and Telavi in Kakheti region and Abasha, Khobi, Martvili and Senaki in Samegrelo region. 19 About 450 activities were accomplished throughout the project
Page 15 of 58
Furthermore, CSRDG, introduced the micro-grants component in the programme. Two grant competitions were announced in 2014 and 2015, and overall 27 projects received funding from UNJP with the total amount of 148,264.6 GEL (67%), complemented with community contributions – 27,122.4 GEL (12%), municipal funding – 25,721.5 GEL (12%) and other sources – 21,404.7 GEL (10%). The projects covered variety of issues, including fixing sewage and water supply of village kindergarten, training courses and study tours to other municipalities, building and renovating recreation areas, etc. All projects were successfully completed. The initiative groups managed to overcome initial skepticism, attract and engage neighbors in the process and earned respect and gratitude from the communities, thus obtaining a gratifying sense of accomplishment.
Through mobilization of funds in local budgets and micro-project component the community mobilization efforts engaged and affected up to 4,900 rural women.
As part of the economic empowerment of women, CSRDG engaged with the VET institutions in Kakheti and Samegrelo to support enrollment of the community women interested in entrepreneurial/employment opportunities in the programs. Each course group consisted of women from selected communities. Separately, Business Guidelines were compiled on starting and operating a business in Georgia. Furthermore, CSRDG concentrated on coaching/mentoring women in starting their business – support in preparing business plans and providing venues for obtaining state or commercial micro-finance opportunities. Overall, only 12 women prepared business plans and applied for funding, with only 5 women actually received financing and started own business.
The results of business support showed strong lack of confidence of rural women in taking loans/credits individually. UNJP therefore shifted its emphasis on encouraging women to establish or join cooperatives. The Government of Georgia runs cooperative support programs, which provide both funding and consultations for interested groups. UNJP through CSRDG and Association of Women Farmers of Kakheti supported additional trainings for interested women and provided venues to engage with the Cooperative Agency under the Ministry of Agriculture.
Outcome 2: Enabling environment to eliminate violence against women, especially domestic violence created in Georgia.
In line with its mandate and scope of work within the UNJP, UN Women has aspired to enhance gender equality through contributing to the creation of an enabling environment to eliminate violence against women and girls (VAWG), especially domestic violence (DV).
In the frameworks of UNJP, efforts were targeted at further improvement of relevant policies and laws as well as further development of services for survivors of domestic violence provided by both, state and non-state actors (such as shelters, crises centers, career advice, job-placement and access to justice).
UNJP’s targeted advocacy contributed to Georgia’s signing the Council of Europe Convention on Combating and Preventing Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) in June 2014. To ensure compliance of the Georgian legislation with the Istanbul Convention provisions, the first wave of legislative amendments was developed with UNJP’s technical support and adopted by parliament in October 2014 (without major alterations, resulting in changes to 14 legal acts). In addition, UNJP provided support to the DV Council to develop relevant policy papers20 in broad consultation processes with national partners from the line ministries, state institutions responsible for its
20 DV NAP 2013-2015; DV Referral Mechanism; DV Council Statute; DV Victims Status Granting Regulations.
Page 16 of 58 implementation, and civil society organizations translating international and national commitments into action.
To ensure sustainability of the services for DV victims/survivors established with UNJP’s technical and financial support, the government has increased funding to the State Fund for the Protection and Assistance to the Victims of Human Trafficking (State Fund). Increased budget allocation was used for the maintenance of the third and fourth domestic violence shelters (in Kutaisi, Imereti and Tsnori, Kakheti) and the state budget allotments for the services for DV victims/survivors during 2012-2015 increased more than twice.21 In the reporting period, the three shelters (all established with UN Women’s/Sweden’s support) have served 546 DV victims/survivors22 while the nation-wide DV hotline served 4,996 beneficiaries.23
In order to enhance national ownership and ensure sustainability of capacity development results of UNJP, the project contributed to the improvement and institutionalization of training curricula for service providers to the victims/survivors of DV. In particular, a mandatory course on DV in the curriculum of future police officers (the Police Academy) has been extended from 6 to 8 hours, and the DV course developed within UNJP has been integrated into the mandatory continuous legal education system for all lawyers, prosecutors, investigators and for future and sitting judges.
UNJP put great emphasis on prevention of violence against women, especially domestic violence. Strategic and well-targeted awareness raising initiatives, including public information campaigns have been implemented, contributing to a shift in public attitudes, that sustain inequality and discrimination. One concrete and measurable result has been disclosure of the instance of DV.24
Output 2.1: National laws and policies on domestic violence improved in line with international commitments (DEVAW, CEDAW, Beijing Platform for Action).
Under this output the interventions have focused on supporting the government to review and improve legislative and policy frameworks aimed at eliminating domestic violence and enhanced government’s ownership of the improvements made. In addition, UN Women has been advocating with the parliamentary Gender Equality Council (GEC), the DV Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia (MFA) for the ratification of the Istanbul Convention. With support of UNJP a delegation of the government of Georgia participated in the 57th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in March 2013, and the Prime Minister25 committed to sign and ratify the Istanbul Convention in the nearest future under the UN SG’s COMMIT initiative. Consequently, Minister of Justice signed on behalf of the Government of Georgia the Istanbul Convention in June 2014. The commitment to sign and ratify the Istanbul Convention has been further re-affirmed in the DV NAP 2013-2015 adopted and approved by the President of Georgia in July 2013.
UNJP has provided support to the DV Council and the MOJ to analyze the acting Georgian legislation and support development of relevant adjustments in compliance with the Istanbul Convention’s provisions. As a result, the first wave of legislative amendments has been developed (also in close partnership with UNICEF in relation to children’s rights) and adopted in October 2014 without major alterations. The MOJ
21 State Fund’s budget by year: 2012 - 210 059,87GEL; 2013 - 287 310,92GEL; 2014 - 342 368,27GEL; 509 472,51GEL (Source: State Fund). 22 Number of DV victims/survivors having used shelter services by year: 2011 – 89; 2012 – 88; 2013 – 100; 2014 – 114; 2015 – 155 (Source: State Fund). 23 Number of calls on the DV hotline by year: 2012 - 644; 2013 - 1,997; 2014 - 1,182; 2015 - 1,143 (Source: State Fund). 24 Number of restrictive orders issued and approved by year: 2013 – 227 (out of 225 filed); 2014 – 817 (out of 849 filed); 2015 – 2,598 (out of 2,726 filed) (Source: MIA). Number of protective orders issued by year: 2013 – 57; 2014 – 92; 2015 – 173 (Source: Supreme Court of Georgia). 25 In response to UN Women's call to world leaders to “Step It Up” at the “Global Leaders’ Meeting on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: A Commitment to Action” on 27 September 2015 in New York – where world leaders committed to ending discrimination against women by 2030 and announced concrete and measurable actions to kick-start rapid change in their countries – the then Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Gharibashvili declared ending violence against women and girls and domestic violence as one of the country’s top priorities. The Prime Minister stressed that the country will continue updating, revising and developing subsequent phases of i.a National Action Plan on ending domestic violence.
Page 17 of 58 has developed the second wave of legislative amendments in a broad national consultation process supported by UNJP (to be submitted to the Parliament for adoption in the fall 2016).
The improved Georgian domestic violence related legislation now provides better protection to women from different forms of violence. For example, the concept of “forced marriage” was added to the Criminal Code of Georgia (a new article 150/1) and “neglect” as a new form of domestic violence, in reference to the lack of fulfillment of parental duties in respect to children, has been added to the Domestic Violence Law. In line with the Istanbul Convention, special attention is now paid to the accommodation/housing of a victim/survivor of domestic violence, in that the police are now authorized to temporarily evict the perpetrator from the place of residence regardless of property rights.
In order to build capacity of the DV Council in the area of elimination and prevention of DV, UNJP organized a study tour to Spain for the members of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the Government of Georgia as well as local self-governments (November 17-21, 2014). Spain has been selected based on progressive DV legislation and good results achieved in prevention and provision of services to survivors of DV. Consequently, the study tour provided a firsthand opportunity to Georgian delegation to learn about the Spanish gender equality related legislation, with special focus on the implementation of laws related to DV prevention and response and about good practice in DV prevention and response, including at regional and municipal levels.
Following the study tour to Spain, UNJP has started to support governmental agencies to adapt some of the lessons learned and good practice to the Georgian context. For example, UNJP has been providing technical support to the Ministry of Corrections of Georgia (MOC) to introduce the Spanish model of DV perpetrators rehabilitation in Georgia. Also, UNJP is working with the municipalities of Tbilisi, Telavi and Zugdidi to identify possibilities for municipal funding of DV crisis centers. Furthermore, UNJP has drafted legislative amendments to facilitate issuance procedure for restrictive/barring orders to ensure more efficient response and higher disclosure of DV instances. The draft amendments have been shared with the DV Council, as a result of which, the MOJ has taken the lead to submit them for adoption to the Parliament of Georgia as part of the second wave of amendments aimed at harmonization with the Istanbul Convention. UNJP is also supporting the DV Council and the MoIA to develop risk assessment methodology for DV victims/survivors based on the Spanish model.
Output 2.2.: Capacity of key policy and service delivery institutions strengthened to promote and protect women's human rights to life free from violence, especially from DV
An enabling institutional environment that allows victims/survivors of domestic violence to disclose their suffering and freely seek protection and assistance is the main result of the Joint Programme’s work at institutional level under its Outcome 2. Capacity development work has been carried out targeting different service-providers in the field of domestic violence towards increased quality of, and demand on services, with an ultimate goal to increase trust of victims/survivors of violence in these institutions.
In order to improve police response to the instances of DV, UNJP provided support to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia (MOIA) in partnership with NGO the Anti-Violence Network of Georgia (AVNG): recommendations for the instructions for district and patrol police response to DV cases - as a detailed guidance for police officers in their day-to-day work - have been developed. The draft instructions also include recommendations for the monitoring of the restrictive and protective orders by the district police.
In cooperation with the Police Academy of the MOIA, AVNG has revised the existing training programme on domestic violence for future police officers at the Police Academy in light of the new amendments in the DV related legislation. Interactive components/ practical exercises have been included
Page 18 of 58 in trainings to increase the empathy towards victims and to exercise proper response. The duration of the training program has been extended from 6 to 8 hours and now covers theoretical aspects of domestic violence, legal basis of police action, and practical exercises regarding issuing the restrictive orders. Upon request of the Police Academy, psychological aspects of DV have also been integrated in the training programme. As a result of the addition of psychological aspects, the training programme is intended to be ultimately extended from 8 to 10 hours.
Further, a respective guide for trainers (260 copies) and a manual for trainees (950 copies) have been produced and published. Due to the absence of a formal continuous (on-the-job) education programme for police officers, as a result of UNJP’s technical assistance, a mobile group of trainers has been established to provide ongoing training to acting district and patrol police officers throughout the country based on the aforementioned manual. In total, up to 1,010 acting and future police officers have been trained.26
In order to improve police response to the instances of DV, UNJP continued its support to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia (MOIA) and AVNG providing capacity development for the future and acting patrol and district police officers. On September 29, 2014 UN Women concluded a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the MOIA for the period of September 29, 2014 – December 31, 2015. As per the MoU, UN Women and the Ministry agree to further strengthen the capacity of the police forces to promote and protect women's human rights to life free from violence, especially from domestic violence (DV), and partner towards the establishment of domestic violence and gender based violence (GBV) specialized task groups within the police forces in three pilot regions of Georgia. The Parties also agreed to continue supporting the teaching of a course on combatting domestic violence in the Police Academy of the Ministry, and last but not least, to conduct a Participatory Gender Audit of the Ministry (the latter with UN Women’s core resources). In 2014, as a result of UNJP’s advocacy efforts, the MOIA has established a high level commission on VAWG/DV - a policy-making body within the Ministry with certain oversight and data analysis functions. The Ministry has authorized the district police to issue restrictive orders (only the patrol police had the authority to do so in the past) and has identified two police officers in each of the regional divisions across the country responsible for DV issues (as per the Decree of Minister of Internal Affairs №491 dated 2 July, 2014). As a result, the number of restrictive orders issued has increased dramatically27 indicating increased efficiency of police response to DV.
To ensure coordinated response to DV, during the reporting period, 9 roundtable meetings were conducted throughout Georgia: patrol and district police officers, judges, prosecutors, social workers, representatives of local municipalities, city councils, and different NGOs took part with the aim to improve coordination between relevant structures working on DV issues. Participants were informed on the newly enacted legislation in relation to DV. Prosecutors and judges shared the practice of criminal proceedings related to DV offense with police officers. Challenges in the law enforcement response to DV were discussed to inform further legislative processes. As a result of these meetings, legislative amendments have been drafted to simplify the issuance procedure of restrictive orders. The amendments have been included in the second wave package developed by the MOJ aimed at the harmonization with the Istanbul Convention to be submitted to the Parliament for adoption in 2016.
To develop capacities of the critical service providers to the DV victims/survivors in the law enforcement, UNJP worked together with the Georgian Bar Association (GBA) – the professional self-regulating union of Georgian lawyers - to design a training programme on domestic violence for lawyers. As a result, a comprehensive curriculum has been designed on women’s rights and domestic violence issues. The curriculum has been integrated in the GBA’s mandatory Continuous Legal Education (CLE) system with 7 credits out of 12 in total per annum and will be continued after UNJP’s phase out. Further, 3 series of
26 Two TOTs were conducted for 43 police officers. Some 25 trainings on domestic violence issues were conducted for patrol and district police officers (in total 453 officers attended the trainings). Eight trainings were held for the commanding police officers (in total 127 participants) 21 trainings were held at the police academy for future patrol and district police officers and recent graduates (in total 557 participants). 27 Number of restrictive orders issued and approved by year: 2013 – 227 (out of 225 filed); 2014 – 817 (out of 849 filed); 2015 – 2,598 (out of 2,726 filed) (Source: MIA)
Page 19 of 58 training of trainers have been conducted, as a result of which 13 trainers were selected by the joint evaluation panel consisting of the GBA and UNJP representatives. During the reporting period, the selected trainers have conducted cascade trainings for 645 practicing Georgian lawyers (instead of initially planned 200). According to a post-training survey conducted by GBA for its members (sample 470), 89% of the lawyers believed that the knowledge acquired at the training will be rather useful in their work and 83% of the trainees rated the content and delivery of the training positively.
As a result of UNJP’s support to the GBA, domestic violence legal clinics for BA and MA students in three universities in Tbilisi, Telavi and Zugdidi have been established to ensure that the new graduates are equipped with the relevant knowledge and skills to provide qualified services to DV victims/survivors upon entry into the lawyer’s profession. Some 30 students from three universities underwent advanced training on legal matters related to gender equality and women’s rights with a special focus on domestic violence. At the end of the project, GBA organized a moot court competition on a DV case at the Tbilisi City Court with the participation of the legal clinic’s students. A special committee consisting of practicing lawyers and GBA representatives selected 9 winning students who were placed in internship programs with the PDO’s Tbilisi, Telavi and Zugdidi offices.
In cooperation with the USAID’s EWMI/JILEP program, UNJP (UNDP and UN Women) partnered with the High School of Justice of Georgia (HSOJ), the official judicial training body in Georgia, to develop a comprehensive training program for sitting judges on gender equality, women’s rights and domestic violence issues. UN Women was directly responsible for the development of the section on domestic and international legislation regulating domestic violence. Based on the developed training program, a training of trainers (ToT) has been conducted for 5 trainer judges of the HSOJ. The trained judges have then conducted a pilot training based on the developed program, as a result of which the training program has been finalized.
To enhance capacity of prosecutors in addressing the issues of violence against women and girls and with a special focus on domestic violence, UN Women has started collaboration with the Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia (CPOG). For this purpose, UN Women has recruited an International Expert / Trainer on Women’s Rights with a Special Focus on VAWG and DV for Georgian Prosecutors to develop a training programme on gender equality and women’s rights with a special focus on VAWG and DV issues for practicing prosecutors and conduct a training of trainers for senior prosecutors in Tbilisi, Georgia. The training programme has been finalized and training of trainers conducted, followed by cascade trainings of 100 prosecutors. As a result, The CPOG conducted a criminological study of domestic violence and crimes committed against the sexual integrity and freedom of juveniles; which is also applicable to early marriage cases to inform the development of prosecutorial guidelines for investigators and prosecutors to be used as guidance in the handling of VAWG/DV cases; the timeliness of investigations into VAWG/DV has significantly increased, as has the ability to accurately identify the legal grounds for such cases. Moreover, all of the femicide cases from 2015 were solved28. It should be further emphasized, that the application of discretionary powers by prosecutors in VAWG/DV cases has been reduced to a minimum. The study has further illustrated that following active awareness raising campaigns and improved criminal law policy, the rate of reporting to law enforcement agencies has doubled29 and the degree of cooperation of victims/survivors with law enforcement agencies had increased; and this ultimately resulted in higher rates of criminal prosecutions and convictions.
As a result of UNJP’s support to the State Fund for the Protection and Assistance to the Victims of Human Trafficking (State Fund) a (third) shelter for DV victims/survivors in Kutaisi, West Georgia has been established. The shelter has the capacity to host up to 17 victims/survivors including their children. In
28 According to the CPOG, in 89% (11% not prosecuted due to suicide by perpetrator) and 100% of femicide cases in 2014 and 2015 respectively perpetrators have been prosecuted. 29 For example, according to the MoIA, the emergency management center “112” received 5,447 calls about domestic conflicts in 2013. Out of these calls, 212 cases resulted in restraining orders being issued. While in 2014, the hotline “112” received over 10,000 calls about domestic violence resulting in 817 restraining orders
Page 20 of 58 addition, another (fourth) shelter has been established in the Eastern part of Georgia – Kakheti region’s Tsnori village with a capacity of 10 beds. It is noteworthy, that the establishment of the fourth shelter in Kakheti was not initially foreseen by the UNJP and is a result of the UNJP efficient work and advocacy. The Government of Georgia has taken over funding of the shelter in Kutaisi from the state budget in 2014 and for the shelter in Kakheti in 2015. Hence, the government funding of services for domestic violence victims/survivors (shelters, hotline, face-to-face consultations) has more than doubled between 2012- 2015.30 In total, during the reporting period, the shelters have served 546 DV victims/survivors31 while the nation-wide DV hotline served 4,996 beneficiaries.32 To build capacities of the State Fund’s staff serving DV victims/survivors, during the reporting period 7 trainings of the shelters’ staff and 4 trainings for hotline staff were conducted in Tbilisi, Gori, Batumi and Kutaisi on based on the specificities of their work.
Moreover, as a result of UNJP’s support to the State Fund, an electronic database of the DV victims/survivors to enhance data collection in the area of domestic violence has been developed and launched. It is now regularly maintained by the State Fund by entering and storing all relevant data on the service users abiding by the confidentiality standards.
As result of UNJP advocacy work with the Public Defender of Georgia (PDO), its Centre for Women’s and Children’s Rights has been transformed into the Gender Equality Department (GED) – a standing structure higher in the hierarchy of the PDO institutional system and with increased budget in May 2013. In order to improve gender mainstreaming within the PDO operations and improve its response to gender- related cases, including complaints on domestic violence issues, UNJP supported the PDO to develop its Gender Equality Strategy and Action Plan for 2013-2015. It is the first ever government agency in Georgia to adopt a gender mainstreaming action plan. Protection of women’s rights and promotion of gender equality are one of the main priorities of the PDO’s work. The gender equality strategy and action plan determine the directions and priorities of the PDO’s work and is a tool for gender mainstreaming in different structural entities and activities of the PDO. The progress of the implementation of the strategy and action plan is being evaluated on a regular basis and revised as necessary. Furthermore, the strategy and action plan have been integrated into administrative and budget plans of the PDO for 2015.To facilitate implementation of the strategy and action plan, UNJP organized training for the staff of different departments of the PDO on gender equality and women’s rights issues. As part of the strategy and action plan, the PDO also developed a first ever Special Report on Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence in Georgia for 2014 and presented to a broad range of stakeholders to inform further legislative and policy-making processes.
To advance PDO’s participation in the DV national referral mechanism, the UNJP has provided support to the GED to develop methodology for and conduct monitoring of the enforcement of the restrictive and protective orders to help in identify any flaws or needs for further improvement in these protection mechanisms (such as terms, conditions, renewal, termination, etc.). The monitoring has been carried out by the PDO during the reporting period in close collaboration with other Joint Programme partners and it has significantly informed the development process of proposed legislative amendments adopted by the Parliament in 2014. In addition, UN Women supported the PDO GED to develop a monitoring tool of services for DV victims/survivors (DV shelters and hotline) to ensure high quality and compliance with national as well as international standards. The monitoring tool has been tested and the report for the first round of the monitoring has been finalized in 2015. A number of its recommendations have already been implemented by the State Fund (for example, the shelter in Tbilisi now has a babysitter on staff to allow for the beneficiaries with minor children to engage in vocational training and employment). The monitoring tool has been institutionalized with the PDO GED and will be used on an annual basis.
30 State Fund’s budget by year: 2012 - 210 059,87GEL; 2013 - 287 310,92GEL; 2014 - 342 368,27GEL; 509 472,51GEL (Source: State Fund). 31 Number of DV victims/survivors having used shelter services by year: 2011 – 89; 2012 – 88; 2013 – 100; 2014 – 114; 2015 – 155 (Source: State Fund). 32 Number of calls on the DV hotline by year: 2012 - 644; 2013 - 1,997; 2014 - 1,182; 2015 - 1,143 (Source: State Fund).
Page 21 of 58 For further enhancement of the DV response in general, the role of social workers in the prevention and response to the instances of domestic violence should be extended. For this purpose, UNJP has partnered with the Georgian Association of Social Workers (GASW) – a professional union unifying almost all social workers in Georgia from both the governmental and non-governmental sectors. With UNJP support, GASW established a working group in partnership with the MoLHSA to develop a national concept on the social workers’ role and mandate in DV prevention and response. A draft concept has been developed to be finalized in 2014. However, its adoption has been delayed due to the lack of institutional capacity of the Social Service Agency (SSA) – a public legal entity of the MoLHSA responsible for the provision of social services. More specifically, the number of social workers in the SSA was rather low with an extremely high workload and the SSA started recruitment of additional social workers to be able to also cover domestic violence issues efficiently. It is planned that the concept will be adopted after relevant institutional capacity is in place in the SSA.
In order to strengthen capacities of the social workers for a more efficient response to DV, GASW has developed a training module for social workers on domestic violence issues and a curriculum in relation to social worker’s role in combating DV within the social work undergraduate and graduate academic programs integrated at the Tbilisi State University. The training module for social workers is now being revised by the State Fund supported by USAID to reflect their revised role in the prevention and response to DV as per the final draft of the concept under development.
UN Women has continued its support to the Women’s Consultation Centre “Sakhli” in the establishment of the model crisis center for DV victims/survivors in Tbilisi. This was done in line with the relevant international standards and best practices and based on the concept on model crisis centers developed by Sakhli. The model crisis center is operational as of December 2012. UNJP has been advocating with the Tbilisi City Hall to take over funding of the crisis center upon phase-out of the Programme. However, the agreement has not been reached due to the fact that the State Fund is opening a crisis center in Tbilisi to be funded by the MoLHSA in 2016.
During the reporting period 127 beneficiaries (106 women and 21 children) were provided with the services of consultation-rehabilitation department of DV Crisis Centre; Individual psychological consultations were rendered to 84 women and 12 children; legal consultations were provided to 36 women; medical assistance was rendered to 37 beneficiaries (women and children); 31 beneficiaries (22 women and 9 children) were provided with short term accommodation at the crisis center.
The Women’s Employment Support Association “Amagdari”, with the support of UNJP developed the draft concept on the socio-economic rehabilitation of the DV victims/survivors in line with local expertise and international best practices. The document has been developed based on a comprehensive research and analysis of the existing international experience and best practices as well as evaluation of over five years of work of Amagdari in terms of socio-economic rehabilitation of DV victims/survivors and mapping of existing state and private vocational education providers and employment services. The draft concept has been presented to the stakeholders from the government and civil society for finalization in 2014. However, it has not been accepted by the DV Council for review (lack of political will).
During the reporting period 141 new beneficiaries were added to the database of Amagdari (in total 938 beneficiaries among them 354 are DV victims/survivors). Some 75 beneficiaries participated in different trainings aimed at enhancing their employability (English, general skills), 222 beneficiaries were trained in women’s rights, 45 beneficiaries were placed for training in Vocational Education Centers in different subject areas, 178 beneficiaries were employed and placed in internship positions, 281 beneficiaries were consulted in employment, business and NGO management issues, 301 beneficiaries underwent professional orientation. As a result, 150 beneficiaries were employed. According to monitoring results 88 of them maintained their job one year after job placement.
Page 22 of 58
Output 2.3: Public awareness raised to support prevention and disclosure of the instances of GBV and DV.
The work under Outcome 2 of the Joint Programme at grassroots level aims supporting prevention as well as disclosure of instances of domestic violence, aiming specifically targeting a) increased awareness among the target audiences of the problem of violence against women and domestic violence in particular, b) encouraging disclosure of the instances of DV and promote the use of the existing victim support services; c) preventing violence from occurring in the longer run by promoting zero tolerance with regard to violence against women in general and DV in particular as they constitute criminal offences.
To achieve these goals, UNJP has conducted different kinds of multi-level local (Tbilisi, Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, Kakheti) and countrywide short-term and long-term awareness raising activities in partnership with local municipalities, local and regional media, opinion leaders, writers, artists and sportsmen using snowball strategy to outreach and communicate effectively. Bearing in mind the aforementioned goals of the communication efforts, the campaign had two mottos: a) for the nation-wide DV hotline: “FOR YOUR PROTECTION 2 309-903” and b) to promote zero tolerance to DV and VAWG focusing on men and boys, voiced by famous Georgian rugby players: “Let women’s abusers come and scrum with us”. By using entertainment media and sports, UNJP has inter alia employed unusual means to raise awareness, tackle stereotyped perceptions and attitudes towards VAWG and DV and thus encourage attitudinal changes in the society in a longer run.
UNJP has found that art is very powerful mediator to encourage public debate around the topic of VAWG and DV and to contribute to the change of attitudes and beliefs. Therefore, it has partnered with the Ministry of Culture and Monuments Protection of Georgia and the Kote Marjanishvili State Drama Theatre to organize a playwrights’ competition to produce drama plays on DV/VAWG issues. As a result, 9 plays were developed and published as a book entitled ‘9 plays vs violence’. The book was presented to the general public and special public readings were conducted by the theatre’s actors. The winner play ‘The Dream’ has been staged by the Kote Marjanishvili State Drama Theatre with UNJP’s support in 2013. Additionally, 3 plays from the book have been staged by different theatres throughout the country independently from UNJP.
Furthermore, supported by UNJP, the Rustaveli Drama Theatre (the biggest theatre in Georgia) has staged “Lysistrata” – a play by the well-known Georgian writer Lasha Bughadze. The Play is based on the comedy by Aristophanes about power relations between men and women. The premiere took place on 8th December 2015, in the frameworks of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. The play has achieved substantial critical acclaim and has now been included in the repertoire of the Rustaveli Theatre to be seen by hundreds of visitors.
The documentary “Speak Out!” produced by UNJP in cooperation with the Georgian National Film Center has generated not only strong emotions and condemnation of domestic violence in the society, but as per the feedback from the audience, it has encouraged them to act & not remain silent once witnessing it.33 UNJP has organized screenings throughout Georgia for different audiences ranging from students, NGOs, journalists, law enforcement professionals, athletes, artists, actors to political parties. The screenings were typically associated with follow up discussions about violence against women issues, with participation of VAW experts and/or gender equality advocates.
UNJP has continued its partnership with the Georgian Rugby Union under the aegis of the United Nations Secretary General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women Campaign and UN Women’s solidarity movement for gender equality - HeforShe. In 2012the Georgian National Rugby Team – ‘the Lelos’,
33 The movie is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCAaxVHqXac.
Page 23 of 58 dedicated the international test match between Georgia and Russia to the UN Secretary-General’s Campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women. During programme implementation, 23 rugby matches have been dedicated to this cause. Popular rugby players also starred in videos condemning violence against women and girls, which millions of people watched on television and social media by reaching 246,680 users via Facebook only. Next, the players started a series of meetings with young men and boys across Georgia, where they trained them in rugby, and on the principles of equality, mutual respect and support that are the foundation of rugby. They urged and lobbied young men and boys for zero tolerance to violence against women. During the reporting period, 35 meetings have taken place reaching up to 1,000 young men and boys throughout the country. The Lelos devote several international matches every year to raise awareness about violence against women and girls. Giga Chikadze, K-1 and Mixed Martial Arts Fighter, World Cup Winner, World and European Champion has joined the rugby players in 2013 and has been meeting with schoolboys in Samegrelo and Kakheti regions to discuss in an interactive manner, gender stereotypes, attitudes towards violence against women and girls and domestic violence with the boys. On July 3, 2014 the Tbilisi Sports Palace hosted the World Fight Show in mixed martial arts version K1 co-organized by UNJP and devoted to the UN Secretary General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women Campaign. The motto of the tournament was KNOCKOUT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. All fighters were wearing armbands with the UNiTE Campaign logo thus demonstrating their commitment to the cause. UNiTE promotional materials were displayed all over the Sports Palace and were distributed to the special guests of the event. The culmination of the show was the synthesis of sport and arts against violence against women and domestic violence. A specially designed choreographic performance by the actors of the Kote Marjanishvili State Drama Theatre preceding the main fight between the Georgian and Japanese champions, called on over 7000 people attending the event to engage in the fight against violence against women. The event was widely covered by the local media and international sports media. In addition, following the example by rugby players, the Georgian Football Federation joined the HeforShe campaign and to mark this event, devoted the Georgian national championship to the cause of EVAWG in 2014.
On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November 2014, UN Women launched UN Women’s solidary movement for gender equality – HeForShe.34 campaign in Georgia. Nine prominent men, supporters of gender equality, including the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Public Defender, UN Resident Coordinator, Ambassador of the United States of America, Ambassador of the EU, Head of the EU Monitoring Mission, Ambassador of the Republic of Estonia, Secretary General of the Georgian Football Federation, and Representative of the Georgian Rugby Union have also added their voices to the HeForShe movement. The signatories invited men and boys in Georgia to join some 200,000 men and boys globally who have committed themselves to take actions in support of gender equality by the end of 2014. On the same day, UN Women organized a high- level meeting with over 100 participants, representatives of the Parliament of Georgia, government, UN and international organizations, diplomatic corps, donors and civil society organizations to review progress made in the past year in preventing and combatting violence against women and girls and discuss gaps and ways forward. The meeting re-confirmed commitment among relevant stakeholders to strengthen cooperation and coordination and prevent and respond more effectively to all forms of violence against women and girls. Events organized by UN Women in the frameworks of 16 days of activism campaign resulted in over 100 media coverages.
As a result of UN Women’s work with prominent Georgian men for the last 5 years and who are involved in the public awareness campaigns (UNiTE and HeForShe) promoting zero tolerance towards VAWG/DV & men’s engagement in achieving gender equality, a first ever men’s movement - “CHVEN (WE) – Men Against Violence", has been established in Georgia. Launched on 7 December 2015, the new men’s movement aims to support the fight against DV/VAWG, while also seeking to contribute to the
34 (http://www.heforshe.org/)
Page 24 of 58 achievement of gender equality in Georgia. The founders are actively engaged in various activities aimed at educating men & boys on gender equality & VAWG/DV issues.
During programme implementation, UNJP organized 16 talk-shows on VAWG and DV issues on four regional television channels in Kakheti and Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti. Four public service announcements promoting the nation-wide DV hotline and two PSAs starring the Georgian National Rugby Team and MMA World Champion Giga Chikadze promoting the UN SG’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women Campaign were being aired on the Georgian Public Broadcaster and Tabula TV channel.35 Outdoor banners promoting the nation-wide DV hotline were placed in Tbilisi, Telavi and Zugdidi (16 locations) throughout the reporting period.
To ensure proper and ethical coverage of VAWG/DV issues in the media, UNJP recruited a prominent British journalist and expert in gender-sensitive and ethical reporting Ms. Hannah Storm to develop a training module for journalists and bloggers on gender-sensitive and ethical reporting on VAWG and DV related issues. Some 21 journalists were selected throughout Georgia to participate in the training. As a result, 9 articles/stories were developed by the journalists on VAWG/DV related issues and placed in different print and social media publications. As a follow-up to the training, an exhibition “the Interior of Violence" – an interactive performance with elements of verbatim theater staged by actors and actresses of Georgia’s Kote Marjanishvili State Drama Theatre has been organized twice in Tbilisi and once in Poti. Visitors have taken active part in a special installation in the form of house interior to experience live stories written by Georgian journalists, bloggers, and photo correspondents on violence against women and domestic violence issues.36 Furthermore, one of the participants of the training (Eka Kevanishvili) was awarded as the winner of the first prize of the PDO’s competition “Journalists for Women’s Rights. Two more participants of the training (Sopo Aptsiauri and Tatia Khaliani) were awarded the 3rd prize for the article “Women in the endless cycle of violence” developed as a result of the aforementioned training. In addition, Eka Kevanishvili’s radio report was awarded a prize for the best radio report by the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics. UNJP in cooperation with the British expert Ms. Storm has redesigned the training module into a curriculum in gender-sensitive and ethical reporting for BA journalism programs in 6 universities in Tbilisi to be completed in 2016. The training module has been integrated into the curriculum of the PDO’s Human Rights Academy and will be offered to journalists as of 2016.
UNJP has actively used social media as the means for promoting services for DV victims/survivors as well as raising awareness of gender equality and EVAWG in general through the Facebook page of the nationwide DV hotline 2309903. Annual coverage of the Facebook page has been 246,680 users - almost 20% of all Facebook users in Georgia and it had 4096 ‘Likes’ by the end of 2015.
We believe that UNJP’s awareness raising and capacity development initiatives significantly contributed to positive shifts in public attitudes towards domestic violence as well as to the improved response to cases of domestic violence abuse.
According to the UN Women’s Study on the Perceptions and Attitudes Towards Violence against Women and Girls and Domestic Violence in Tbilisi, Kakheti and Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti regions of Georgia aimed at analyzing the level of public awareness and perceptions with regards to VAWG in general and DV in particular and measuring awareness of the DV related legislation and existing services for the DV victims/survivors, significant changes in public awareness are indeed evident. The study also allows for certain comparison with the UNFPA/ACT National Research on Domestic Violence against Women in Georgia (2009) to identify shifts in the perceptions and awareness during the period of 2009-2013. According to the UNFPA Research (2009), 78.3% of respondents believed that domestic violence is a family matter and 34.1% believed that violence in the family can be justified, while according to the UNJP mid-term study (2013), only 25% believe DV is a family matter, while 69% believe DV is a crime and
35 The videos can be accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCCTqllk4A0, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WhJmWsdznc. 36 A video on the performance can be accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=605faISjsqk.
Page 25 of 58 17% believe it can be justified in certain cases. Therefore, certain positive changes in societal attitudes towards zero tolerance to DV in Tbilisi and target regions can be observed.
In addition, increased awareness is also evidenced by the increased disclosure of DV instances. For example, the emergency management center “112” received 5,447 calls about domestic conflicts in 2013. Out of these calls, 212 cases resulted in restraining orders being issued. While in 2014, the hotline “112” received over 10,000 calls about domestic violence resulting in 817 restraining orders.
Outcome 3: Gender Equality advanced by creating enabling environment to realize Sexual and Reproductive Rights of population
Within the frameworks of UN Joint Programme, UNFPA Georgia has achieved tangible results in terms of supporting Government of Georgia to deliver on its international obligations and to foster country’s aspiration towards the European Integration by creating enabling environment to advance gender equality. Various initiatives spearheaded by UNFPA within three years have been dedicated to advocate for and support policy dialogue for better legislative framework, policies, regulatory systems and standards in the area of gender equality (GE), sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights (SRH&RR), youth sustainable and harmonious development, prevention of harmful practices of early marriages and gender- biased sex selection (GBSS), promotion of healthy lifestyle education, etc. The interventions carefully customized in response to Georgia’s development priorities and national context enabled to secure government’s ownership and commitment, fostered evidence-based policy dialogue and enabled participatory platforms on the national level.
The programme has made remarkable achievements for enabling Georgia’s youth to be actively engaged in shaping social norms and values, striving to contribute to social progress, and influencing policies that affect their lives. National Youth Policy elaborated with UNFPA’s technical assistance has become a stepping stone for advancing youth agenda in the country.
Throughout UNJP implementation, UNFPA has succeeded in generating quality knowledge resources for leading evidence-based policy dialogue and public discourse on gender equality, Gender Biased Sex Selection (GBSS), early marriages, etc. The programme contributed to increased public awareness on gender equality through various evidence-based gender-transformative activities targeting youth, media, COBs or wider spectrum of the society. Majority of the initiatives implemented within the UNFPA component have generated ample media and public interest towards issues embedded in the ICPD agenda. As a result of various initiatives spearheaded by UNFPA during the programme implementation, important partnerships have been formed with national and international actors ensuring sustainability of the results and preparing solid foundation for further interventions in Phase II of the Programme.
Output 3.1: Enhanced capacity of policy makers to integrate Gender Equality and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights into the population policies and national development frameworks with particular focus on youth
Based on Georgia’s national priorities and UNDAF, UNFPA Georgia has prioritized strengthening of the national capacities for improved policy development integrating gender equality. To help country deliver on its international obligations, UNFPA has supported government of Georgia to integrate gender equality and SRH&RR principles into the population policies and national development frameworks with particular focus on youth. As a result of the evidence-based policy advocacy, logical sequence of the initiatives implemented by UNJP UNFPA component yielded substantial results leading to a National Youth Policy formulation, where GE and SRH&RR are fully integrated. For instance, a specifically designed workshop for the members of parliament and staffers sensitized attendees on the SRH&RR and the role of the Parliament in strengthening conducive environment for reproductive health and rights of the population. Arranging public lectures of the prominent public speaker, a Swedish statistician and the co-
Page 26 of 58 founder of the Gapminder Foundation, Mr. Hans Rosling (2014) on the topic of “Investing in Youth Development and Reproductive Health – Investing in the Country’s Development” triggered immense governmental and societal interest towards the youth issues. A study tour organized in Scotland for the high level governmental representatives served as the perfect opportunity to get acquainted with the country’s experience having achieved significant achievements in promoting youth agenda. Last but not the least, supporting series of advocacy meetings with relevant line ministries or decision-makers sustained maintenance of GE, SRH&RR, and youth issues high on the political agenda. The sequence of these strategic interventions has emphasized the urgency of supporting youth development and empowerment for ensuring sustainable future of the country. Thus, as a result of the above-mentioned advocacy efforts, UNFPA Georgia has managed to advance youth agenda in Georgia in three strategic directions: supporting comprehensive evidence-based youth policy development and implementation, promoting youth education on SRH and strengthening youth leadership and participation.
Displaying government’s commitment to support sustainable development of youth in Georgia, UNFPA Georgia managed to build strong partnership with Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs of Georgia (MoSY) preceded by multi-year policy dialogue and advocacy for youth SRH policy. These efforts included generating evidence on youth SRH through periodic research and supporting National Youth Reproductive Health and Rights Parliamentary Forums as a platform for the high-level policy dialogue. With UNFPA’s technical assistance, MoSY has laid the groundwork for elaborating National Youth Policy, a strategic document of the state importance serving as a solid stepping stone for governmental programmes and policies in support of youth development and empowerment. UNFPA has ensured that gender equality, healthy lifestyle, and SRH&RR issues are fully integrated in the document, safeguarding youth’s access to high-quality and age-appropriate reproductive health information and services. The “National Youth Policy Action Plan 2014-2020” and, “Monitoring and Evaluation Mechanism of implementation of the National Youth Policy Action Plan for 2014-2020” have also been developed under the leadership of MoSY and with UNFPA’s technical assistance. With the financial commitment of MoSY and UNFPA’s technical assistance, the innovative Youth Policy Monitor website http://youth.gov.ge/ has been established to serve dual purpose - to enable online monitoring of the Action Plan by key ministries, and to provide user-friendly access to data and analytical resources on Youth related issues. The government ownership and sustainability of the efforts has been further guaranteed by the establishment of the special institutional mechanism – the State Inter-Agency Coordination Council on Youth Policy, consisting of Deputy Ministers. The Council proved to be a successful mechanism ensuring strong ownership over the initiative, as well as Youth Policy and Action Plan implementation. When advancing youth agenda on the national level, UNFPA/Georgia has supported opening opportunities for young people to engage in a policy dialogue through bringing their needs and challenges to the attention of the policy makers. Within the frameworks of the UN Joint Programme, UNFPA has created youth participatory platforms in order to open up a space for youth to contribute, in the form of policy recommendations, to the high level policy dialogue on improving the provision of youth friendly services, capacity building, knowledge-sharing and youth awareness raising and access to information. In partnership with European Youth Parliament of Georgia (hereinafter “EYP Georgia”), UNFPA directly reached out to 685 young people through National and Regional Forums and informational sessions in order to generate discourse among young people on such crucial issues as, gender equality, gender-based violence, SRH&RR and to bring their concerns, problems and opportunities to the attention of the policy- makers. The recommendations prepared as the result of the Forums have been submitted to the governmental representatives to be considered for the policy formulation. The outcome documents have been reflected in Youth Policy and have been used to lead further needs-based advocacy with relevant governmental sectors.
UNFPA’s multi-year advocacy efforts have also resulted in opening opportunities to cooperate with the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia (MoES) for integration of gender equality, healthy lifestyle
Page 27 of 58 and SRH issues in the formal education system. MoES has become one of the leading actors in the process of Youth Policy and Action Plan elaboration. Furthermore, the Ministry has accepted the National Concept on Youth Harmonious and Healthy Development, developed in 2009 with the UNFPA-EU support, as a main reference document in the process of revisiting and amending National Education Plan and specific subjects. UNFPA has managed to use the momentum and advocated for the integration of age sensitive information on gender equality, reproductive health and healthy life-style issues. However, the process was also accompanied by certain challenges in the form of radical conservative groups strongly opposing integration of the above-mentioned issues in the formal education system. Nevertheless, UNFPA managed to maintain the leverage over the process and continued advocating for the enhancement of the specific school subject standards with relevant evidence-based information.
Acknowledging that early marriage (or, Child Marriage) violates girls’ rights, denies them of their childhood, disrupts their education, jeopardizes their health, and limits their opportunities, UNFPA has flagged the harmful practice for generating wider political and public discourse. In cooperation with the Assistant to the Prime Minister on Human Rights and Gender Equality Issues at Government Administration, a Task Force on Early Marriages has been established comprised of key line ministries, UN agencies, non-governmental and international organizations. The task force managed to advocate for placing prevention and response to Child Marriage phenomenon high on the Government Human Rights and Gender Equality agenda, and to refine the policy recommendations for prevention of the harmful practice based on the analysis of the existing resources. Moreover, task force undertook mapping of the government Strategies and Action Plans, such as HR, DV, etc. to address/integrate Child Marriage prevention measures. The mapping exercise is the perfect mechanism to apply a holistic approach for combating the harmful practice and to identify necessary interventions/activities for their integration in the selected government Strategies and Action Plans.
Further supporting informed decision-making process, UNFPA has continued creating quality knowledge resources on crucial issues related to human rights, gender equality, SRH&RR and population dynamics. The substantial knowledge resources generated by UNFPA within the frameworks of UNJP have served as a solid foundation for policy advocacy, programming, as well as designing targeted awareness raising campaigns. With the close cooperation of the World Bank, a comprehensive qualitative research has been conducted on causes and perceived consequences of Gender Biased Sex Selection in Georgia to shed light on the issue of sex imbalances in the country and explore its projected consequences that are critical for planning prevention strategies. This effort was followed up by the decree 01-74/N of the Minister of Labour, Health and Social Affairs, that declared illegal conducting artificial termination of pregnancy on the ground of sex. Moreover, acknowledging that gender inequalities undermine health and development, UNFPA has affirmed that engaging men and boys as partners for equality is a crosscutting aspect of many development goals. Therefore, the survey “Men and Gender Relations in Georgia” has been conducted for exploring the depth of the problem and eliciting information on attitudes of men and women towards gender issues. The publications have been widely accepted and used by politicians, media and general public for tailoring speeches or proper argumentation.
Output 3.2: Strengthened SRH&RR strategies and services to address health system response to Domestic Violence (DV)
Combating Gender-based and domestic violence have been an important programmatic area of UNFPA Georgia within the frameworks of UNJP. The organization has sustained strategic partnership with the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia (MoLHSA) and the Interagency Council for Prevention of Domestic Violence (ICPDV) in Georgia to address inadequate capacity of health care professionals to respond to DV/GVB that has been identified as a significant gap existing in the National Referral Mechanism of the country.
Page 28 of 58 In lieu of the above-said, the Recommendations on Revealing, Referring, and Documenting the Cases of Physical, Sexual and Psychological Violence against Women (Recommendations) was drafted in 2013 that is fully harmonized with the WHO 2013 Policy Guideline on the subject. The document has been elaborated by a multi-faceted working group bringing together representatives of MoLHSA, ICPDV, professional associations, NGOs, and Medical University in order to accumulate and integrate the diverse experience and expertise of the participants. The Recommendations outline main steps of the health care professionals to identify, document, and refer cases of violence against women. Additionally, workshops have been held with the participation of the high-level officials from the relevant line Ministries involved in combating DV/VAW in order to operationalize the Recommendations and identify relevant state programs for funding services for the victims of DV/VAW.
Following the Recommendations, the training module has been prepared using the resources developed by Women against Violence Europe (hereinafter “WAVE”), a regional partner of the UNFPA Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Office in the area of strengthening health system response to GBV/DV. UNFPA has tested the training module through 2 (two) workshops conducted for the healthcare professionals, in order to secure broader insight of the professionals in the process and make it realistic and feasible. However, due to the ongoing process related to introducing the legislative amendments prompted by the requirements for ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention), the piloting of the trainings has been reasonably delayed in order to integrate revised legislative framework, on the one hand, and to secure government’s commitment over the process, on the other hand. Therefore, UNFPA has succeeded to maintain the issue flagged on the government’s agenda; strengthening healthcare response to VAW/DV will be among the priorities for the organization within the frames of the 2016-2020 Country Programme for Georgia.
Output 3.3: Gender Equality and SRH&R promoted through an enabling sociocultural environment
UNFPA/Georgia has contributed to bridging the awareness gap in the society on gender equality by educating youth, men, faith-based organizations, media representatives and others on women’s strengths, vulnerabilities and needs. Within the frameworks of UNJP, UNFPA advanced public awareness on gender equality and SRH&RR issues through a variety of awareness raising activities, effectively using various media, and delivered targeted messages to the wider society.
Throughout the programme implementation, youth has been the centerpiece of the initiatives undertaken by UNFPA in Tbilisi and Kakheti region. Empowering youth through informal education on SRH&RR and gender equality, as a cornerstone of young people’s transition to adulthood has been a successful intervention yielding specific results. Peer Education campaign implemented by UNFPA in cooperation with Georgia Youth Development and Education Association (GYDEA) provided younger generation with evidence-based information on sensitive issues such as gender equality, HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, domestic violence, etc. The peer education methodology ensures that young people involved in the trainings will act as the multipliers of information, thus making reliable information more easily accessible to their peers. Through peer education training sessions, UNFPA managed to reach out 395 young people directly delivering key messages and prompting attitude changes through reconsidering prevailing stereotypes on gender equality, HIV/AIDS, SRH, GBV, etc.
Empowering young people at the grass-root level has been further supported by facilitating a large scale annual Youth Festival in Telavi, Kakheti under the slogan “Equals for Equality” in cooperation with the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs of Georgia (MSY) and different municipalities of Kakheti region. The large scale gatherings have been used for empowering youth to take leadership role in advocating for their rights, for healthier and more productive lives shaped by informed decisions. Initiated by UNFPA, these annual festivals were dedicated to promoting reproductive health, healthy lifestyle, and gender
Page 29 of 58 equality and included indoor and outdoor activities, youth marathons, contests, concerts, etc. UNFPA succeeded in securing MSY’s and Kakheti City Hall’s financial, as well as human resources contribution while organizing the events indicating to the sustainability of the initiatives.
UNFPA also supported mobilizing and strengthening civil society organizations for youth education and empowerment. Under the modality of Small Grants the selected local non-governmental organizations and initiative groups rolled out various initiatives challenging prevailing stereotypes and encouraging young people to become advocates for their own rights. Peer education trainings, TV/radio programmes, roundtable discussions, public lectures and various other interventions reached out to youth, men and women at grassroots level and stimulated the demand for greater gender equality, better reproductive health services and respect for their human rights, especially, reproductive rights. Through the Small Grants, UNFPA managed to reach out to 16,830 beneficiaries.
Within the frameworks of UNJP, UNFPA has also contributed to raising awareness among school-age children through launching a small scale project “My Rights” in the selected secondary schools of Tbilisi and Kakheti in cooperation with Center for Information and Counseling on Reproductive Health Tanadgoma (“NGO Tanadgoma”). The strategic planning of the initiative sustained not only knowledge increase among the school children (314 reached in total) on some aspects of human rights issues, domestic violence, gender equality and reproductive health and rights, but also ensured parents and teachers (110 reached in total) involvement in the process making them allies for better education of young people. MoES has closely cooperated with UNFPA throughout the implementation of the project, which clearly demonstrated existing gaps in the education system, particularly in the regions. Reinforced with UNFPA’s long-term advocacy efforts, this initiative prepared a solid ground for further expanding cooperation with MoES in terms of integrating gender equality, healthy lifestyle, and SRH issues in the formal education system, as well as for initiating parents’ education. UNFPA has provided technical assistance to the Ministry in the process of revisiting and amending National Education Plan and specific subjects, where UNFPA has been singled out as one of the key partner in the process. UNFPA has been actively involved in enhancement of the subject standards of the basic education level (grades 1-4) with the evidence-based information on gender equality, healthy lifestyle, etc. UNFPA provided technical expertise to the MoEs in launching the implementation of the Parents’ Education Programme through providing technical assistance for the informational sessions on early marriages in the areas where the rate of the school drop outs and early marriages are relatively high. The expert commissioned by UNFPA, managed to talk with the local population on the causes and consequences of the early marriages, as well as the existing legal framework regulating the issue in the country. The informational sessions proved to be highly beneficial in terms of reaching out to the ordinary people and starting the dialogue about the issues, tabooed or neglected before.
Acknowledging that men are important partners and agents of change to advance women’s rights, UN JP has applied holistic approach through various traditional and non-traditional techniques and sustained number of gender transformative initiatives in order to challenge misconceptions about gender roles, encourage men and boys to play their role as caring, supportive and non-violent partners, and contribute significantly to attaining greater gender equality. Applying Men Talking to Men methodology, designed by the founder of the White Ribbon Campaign, Mr. Kaufman, UNJP managed to reach out to 144 young men to advance role and responsibility of men in ascertaining gender equality, ending violence against women and ensuring women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. Men Talking to Men trainings sessions prepared ground to a wider scale intervention for enhancing male involvement for gender equality.
Building on the results of the survey Men and Gender Relations in Georgia, UNFPA initiated a small scale awareness raising campaign through the social media, “Daddy, Read Me a Book” which eventually gained immense popularity and transformed into one of the most recognizable social campaigns in the country. Led by young people, the campaign included public book readings by the celebrity fathers, photo
Page 30 of 58 exhibitions and video clips depicting dads with their children, sharing scientific articles, blogs about importance of men’s involvement in gender equality and etc. The campaign generated huge public awareness, people were actively sharing their personal experience and expressing opinions on the issue. One of the most successful components of the campaign was the initiative “Letter from a Dad”, when famous fathers were encouraged to write letters to their children, reflecting on their future and the importance of being advocates for equality and human rights. The success of the intervention can be measured through the number of fathers bringing their children to attend the events with just disseminating the information through a Facebook page “Daddy, Read me a Book”. The various posts on Facebook received 29,426 likes and 980,865 page views.
Making one step further towards increasing public awareness on male involvement, UNFPA launched a Reality Show “Fathers” through winning UNFPA Innovation Fund grant. The Reality Show centered around well-known families where a father takes on a leading role in caring for his two or more children for the entire day. This groundbreaking TV Show on popular Rustavi2 TV Channel featured prominent fathers - celebrities, athletes, cultural figureheads and opinion leaders to emphasize men’s role in the family, their positive contribution to and impact on their family’s life. Each of the 10 episodes was interspersed with father’s reflections and analysis in which they discuss their experience and share key messages with the society.
Through the campaign, UNFPA has succeeded to generate public interest and to create demand for a wider discourse on the issue of male involvement. Several leading TV channels have picked up the topic independently and dedicated separate talk shows to the issues of fatherhood counting for the popularity and sustainability of the cause promoted by UNJP.
In the process of awareness raising, acknowledging the crucial role of media in public education, UNFPA made significant efforts to increase sensitivity and awareness of journalist on SRH&RR and gender equality issues. Trainings of journalists on sensitive reporting, arranging media contests for young journalists and encouraging student-led or regional radios and TVs have yielded tangible results in terms of preparing pool of sensitized journalists providing public with the balanced portrayal of men and women in different media means. Moreover, cooperation with the journalists have been a strategic step in terms of reinforcing awareness raising component in the programme, since journalists started to dedicate more attention and therefore, air time to social issues promoted by UNJP that has been previously neglected by media representatives. In close cooperation with UNDP and UN Women, UNFPA has tapped the ground for integrating sensitive reporting in the higher education of journalists, thus ensuring institutionalization of the efforts made in this regards.
Finally, awareness raising of young people or general public has been supported by the preparation of IEC materials (in total disseminated 9,000) on various issues imbedded in UNJP mandate. The brochures, infographics, fact sheets and other means have been used to deliver information to the population in concise and user friendly form that were widely disseminated throughout different initiatives implemented by UNFPA or partner organizations.
Qualitative Assessment
Overall, the UN Joint Program to Enhance Gender Equality in Georgia was a successful endeavor. With the Parliament and Government more actively engaging and promoting the gender equality agenda, the activities under the Programme were smoothly implemented. Though the 2012 parliamentary elections delayed the activities in the beginning of the program, the 2014 local elections did not affect its implementation. The activities were planned and enforced correspondingly.
Page 31 of 58 Throughout the program the key emphasis was placed on gradually transferring knowledge to and increasing responsibilities of the local stakeholders. Increasing involvement of the legislative and executive branches at central and local levels in implementing gender equality activities was the significant factor of ensuring sustainability of the results.
The capacity development activities have promoted the respective political will and determination to introduce as well as embark on the reforms bringing significant and persistent changes in the society. UNJP has initiated the process of gender mainstreaming in the different sectors of governance through supporting NAP and other policy document preparation and implementation processes.
UNJP has continued generating evidence-based, original knowledge resources on the previously unexplored issues. The findings of the researches were extensively used for leading the policy advocacy and public awareness on the crucial issues.
UNJP has also succeeded in instigating highly recognizable public awareness campaigns on gender stereotypes, violence against women, the perceptions and roles of men, and the role of men and women in upbringing their children. Eventually, through correctly planned initiatives, UNJP has managed to reinforce the interest of the society towards the issues disregarded previously and reinstate the importance of attaining gender equality.
UN Coordination, and management of the programme
The Joint Program Steering Committee co-chaired by the UN Resident Coordinator and the Chair of the Parliamentary Council for Gender Equality has convened at the launching of the program and approved the first year annual plan for implementation. The First Vice-Speaker of the Parliament, Chair of the Gender Equality Council co-chaired the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee met annually in the first quarter of each year to approve the annual report and the workplan for the program activities.
The Joint Program Coordination Team has successfully worked throughout the project. Program activities were effectively coordinated on a monthly basis by the team and a monthly calendar of events has been developed to ensure smooth implementation of activities, especially in public events. A notable example was joint organization and participation in the Gender Week, 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence Campaign in December and the UN week annually.
The Joint Program Management Unit has formed a unified programme team that operated in coordination on a daily basis. The program components occupied a single office space. All management and organizational issues were solved jointly. The program team has compiled a unified calendar of events, database of stakeholders and continuously shared information on implementation and achievements of each component. Each joint or component document was drafted in a coordinated manner.
Page 32 of 58 ii) Indicator Based Performance Assessment:
Using the Programme Results Framework from the Project Document / AWPs - provide details of the achievement of indicators at both the output and outcome level in the table below. Where it has not been possible to collect data on indicators, clear explanation should be given explaining why.
Achieved Indicator Targets Reasons for Variance with Source of Verification Planned Target (if any) Outcome 1: Enhanced women’s political and economic empowerment
Indicator: Data from Legislative, - Number of women at decision making executive and judicial positions increased; authorities; Data from local - Increase in Women's employment rates authorities: and their earnings (in absolute and in relative terms) Decreasing gap between Geostat - Household Budget men's and women's employment and Survey, Labor Survey, earnings Statistical information on employment and earnings Baseline: 6% in Parliament; 11% in local 11% in Parliament, 11% in self- self-governance; 16% in government government, 21% in government (2012); (2011). 11% in Parliament, 11% in self- government, 21% in government (2013); 12% in Parliament, 12% in self- Planned Target: - 10% parliament, 15% government, 16% in government (2014); local self-governance, 20% - government 12% in Parliament, 12% in self- government, 16% in government (2015).
Indicator: Unemployment rate (2014): women 10.4%, - unemployment rate - women 13.1%, men men 14%, pay gap - 63 Tetri/1 GEL 16.7%; pay gap - 57 Tetri/1 GEL (2011). (2014).
Average figures for the last 4 years: Unemployment rate: Women – 12.4 %, men – 15.8 % Pay gap: 62 Tetri/1 GEL
Page 33 of 58 Output 1.1 Improved policy and Parliamentary web-site institutional framework for advancing GEC web-site gender equality agenda Governmental/parliamentary decree on adoption of the GE Indicator 1.1.1 Number of laws reviewed 1.1.1. 20 laws. 5 (2013); 10 (2014); 5 NAP and specific GE measures incorporated (2015) Statements by senior executive Baseline: 0 (2012); officials Planned Target: 5 Information in Media Reports/ Assessments by Indicator 1.1.2 NAP on GE (2014-2016) CSOs drafted and adopted 1.1.2. NAP adopted. Reports of the Legal Aid, Baseline: N PDO, and Courts; Planned Target: Y GeoStat
Indicator 1.1.3 Institutional mechanisms for GE at legislature (as a minimum) 1.1.3. GEC operational and active, operational secretariat/designated staff to be Baseline: Y established Planned Target: Y
Indicator 1.1.4 number of public statements made by high level state officials 1.1.4. 534 media articles (2012) 702 on GE issues media articles (2013) 903 media Baseline: 270 media articles (2011) articles (2014) 2122 media articles Planned Target: An average annual (2015) increase by 10 % Annual increase by 98% 2012; 31% 2013; 29% 2014; 135% 2015. Indicator 1.1.5 no. and substance of application of women to legal aid service, 1.1.5. Post 2012 elections the PDO and courts 1.1.5. Legal aid (civil and administrative overall number of Baseline: legal aid (civil & administrative cases) – 10,528 (2012); 10,243 applications has cases) – 8,630 (2011); (2013); 8,263 (2014); 8,571 (2015). drastically increased Courts – N/A (2011) (including women’s PDO –N/A (2011) Courts – N/A (2012-2015) applications). However, in two years the number Planned Target: An annual increase by 10 PDO – 115 (civil and of applications % administrative) (2015) decreased to its annual
Page 34 of 58 average. Annual increase by 22%, -2%; - 19%; 3%. PDO started collecting Indicator 1.1.6 no. of women's rights sex disaggregated data violation claims reviewed and effectively from 2015. addressed by PDO; 1.1.6. 28 (2012); 98 (2013); 184 (2014), Baseline: 27 (2011); 169 (2015). Courts do not collect sex Planned Target: An annual increase by 15 disaggregated data. % Annual increase by 3%, 96%, 183%, -8%
Activity 1.1.1 Active and Sustainable Gender Equality Council to independently organize advocacy of Gender Equality
Indicator 1.1.1.1 Secretariat for the 1.1.1.1. No. The Vice-Speaker’s cabinet 1.1.1.1 Despite the GEC’s GEC established and funded from the member serves as the Secretary of the efforts, no separate State Budget (Y/N) GEC budget allocations or a permanent staffer was Indicator 1.1.1.2 No of legislative designated for its initiatives advocated by the GEC at the 1.1.1.2. 5 initiatives: 0 (2012); 1 (2013); 1 operations. parliament and the proportion of (2014); 3 (2015) – 80% successful successful initiatives 1.1.1.2 GEC members tried to Baseline: 1 (2011); initiate the laws that Target: advocacy - 10 initiatives, had general successful 20 % parliamentary consent. 1.1.1.3. The GEC made a decision not to Only the initiative on Indicator 1.1.1.3 CSO advisory board formalize any special structure for its mandatory quota was established and managed by the GEC cooperation with CSOs. Instead, they not supported. (Y/N) effectively collaborate on an ad hoc basis as issues arise.
Page 35 of 58 Activity 1.1.2 Current Gender Equality NAP effectively implemented with involvement of relevant executives and the next one adopted with realistic targets
Indicator 1.1.2.1 - The proportion of 1.1.2.1. 70% of the GE NAP 2011-2013; implementation of NAP actions; 50% in the two years of Baseline: 60% (2012); implementation for GE NAP Target: 50 % 2014-2016.
Indicator 1.1.2.2 No of GEC monitoring recommendations addressed 1.1.2.2. One monitoring recommendation by the executive in their actions. for the MOF regarding gender budgeting Target: 30 % (2015).
Indicator 1.1.2.3 level of involvement 100% - MOF adopted the program budget of executive in preparation of the next manual incorporating gender indicators. NAP Target: At least 3 agencies actively involved. 1.1.2.3. All 19 ministries engaged in the preparation of the GE NAP 2014-2016 (2013)
Activity 1.1.3 Public awareness on GE raised; Women are better able to claim their rights as per the fundamental principles of HR
Indicator 1.1.3.1 no. of CSOs (national 1.1.3.1. 44 (2013); 45 (2014); 45 (2015) No substantial change in the and regional) actively working on the number of organizations is a issue positive indicator of stable and Baseline: 44 (2012); sustainable CSO community. Target: an annual increase by 10 % 1.1.3.2. 63.8% aware of GE issues (public Indicator 1.1.3.2 - Proportion of the perception study 2013) people aware of the GE issues and 1.1.3.2. Next perception study sensitive to the problems planned in 2017
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Target: increase by 20 % 1.1.3.3. 28 (2012); 98 (2013); 184 (2014), Indicator 1.1.3.3 No and nature of 169 (2015). gender based discrimination issues addressed to PDO. Annual increase by 3%, 96%, Baseline: 27 (2011); 183%, -8% Target: An annual increase by 15 % 1.1.3.4 Legal aid (civil and administrative Indicator 1.1.3.4 - No and nature of cases) – 10,528 (2012); 10,243 women's claims at the Legal Aid service (2013); 8,263 (2014); 8,571 (2015). 1.1.3.4. Courts do not collect and Courts. sex disaggregated data. Baseline: legal aid (civil & Courts – N/A (2012-2015) administrative cases). Courts – N/A Annual increase by 22%, -2%; - Target: An annual increase by 10 % 19%; 3%.
Output 1.2 Gender responsive policies Government/parliament applied by key national and Local decisions authorities Decisions of local authorities NGO Assessments; Indicator 1.2.1- production of regular sex 1.2.1 Geostat regularly uploads sex 1.2.1. No formalization by Reports of Media disaggregated data formalized by the disaggregated data on the web government decree required government decree Baseline: Y Planned Target: Y
Indicator 1.2.2 -number of substantive 1.2.2. One – MOF adopted program 1.2.2. The interest and measures of central/local authorities to budgeting manual mandating central and commitment on gender analysis expand gender analysis of key national and local authorities to incorporate gender is yet to be generated within the local programs undertaken indicators in their programs (2015) government. Baseline: 0 Planned Target: an annual increase by 10 %)
Page 37 of 58 Activity 1.2.1. Institutional mechanisms for a regular production of sex- disaggregated data established for informed policy-making and implementation
Indicator 1.2.1.1 "Women and Men" 1.2.1.1. Yes (2013) publication by the GEOSTAT. (Y/N)
Indicator 1.2.1.2 A special web-page in 1.2.1.2. Yes. Gender statistics is regularly the site of the GEOSTAT, providing updated in PC-AXIS Database of sex-desegregated data (Y/N) GEOSTAT. Activity 1.2.2. MOED and MOES have the capacity to analyze the impact of their programs on women and men and observe differences in provided MOED disengaged from active opportunities participation
Indicator 1.2.2.1 Gender analysis of the 1.2.2.1. Yes (MOA and MOES provided The interest and commitment key programmes implemented by gender analysis of programs for GE NAP on gender analysis is yet to be MOES and MOED available; (Y/N) implementation reports) generated within the government Activity 1.2.3 Local authorities consider gender differences while planning and delivering local services (in pilot municipalities)
Indicator 1.2.3.1 Analysis of the local 1.2.3.1. Yes. Budgets in the targeted budgets from Gender perspective regions analyzed. The positive dynamics demonstrating the positive dynamics demonstrated between 2014 and 2015 local (Y/N) budgets. Output 1.3 Local women empowered CEC reports; economically and politically through better opportunities for income generation and Interview reports with the political participation beneficiaries;
Indicator 1.3.1- Women candidates running 1.3.1. 26.8 % of all candidates on 2014 for local elections; local elections
Page 38 of 58 Baseline: 0 Planned Target: 20 % of the all candidates
Indicator 1.3.2- Number of households /women that improved their 1.3.2. 1104 women have improved their economic/social conditions as a result of the economic/social conditions as the result of programme the program interventions through VET Baseline: 0 and community mobilization Planned Target: at least 180
Indicator 1.3.3 Ratio of women employed after the trainings 1.3.3. 77 percent (four-year average) Baseline: 0 (2011); Planned Target: 60 %
Activity 1.3.1. Women's income generation opportunities increased in pilot regions
Indicator 1.3.1.1. number and 1.3.1.1. 5 (42% of 12) individual business As rural women did not show proportion of successful income projects; 50 beneficiaries; particular interest in starting generation projects and beneficiaries 3 cooperatives (32 women) own business and 12 drafted Target: projects - 180, beneficiaries 500 (100%); 200 beneficiaries business plans, with only 5 getting the funding, UNJP Indicator 1.3.1.2. number of women shifted its emphasis to trained 1.3.1.2. 887 women trained and 1185 encouraging women to engage Baseline: 0 women received Extension Services in cooperatives. Target: 450 (consultations) Activity 1.3.2. Women's participation and activity enhanced in economic and political processes (local decision- making)
Indicator 1.3.2.1 no. of initiatives 1.3.2.1. 308 (total in Kakheti and advocated by active women at least at Samegrelo) the local level Target: 20
Page 39 of 58 Indicator 1.3.2.2. Proportion of 1.3.2.2. 39% (121) initiatives included in initiatives that found solution after local budgets. women's advocacy Target: 30 %
Outcome 2 Enabling environment to eliminate violence against women, especially domestic violence created in Georgia 2.2 External evaluation Indicator 2.1: Increase of the number of Indicator 2.2: 20 times and 203% increase report; DV NAP 2011- protective and restrictive orders issued by respectively 2012 monitoring report; the judiciary and police respectively. Number of restrictive orders issued and CEDAW concluding Baseline: 132 restrictive and 34 approved by year: 2012; - 361; 2013 – 227 comments and observations to protective orders in 2010 (9 months) (out of 225 filed); 2014 – 817 (out of 849 Georgia’s 4-5 periodic reports Planned Target: 10-20% filed); 2015 – 2,598 (out of 2,726 filed) MOIA; Supreme Court of Number of protective orders issued by year: Georgia 2013 – 57; 2014 – 92; 2015 – 173. Indicator 2.2: Increase in the state target has been met and even surpassed budget allocations for DV issues by 2013. 2.3 State Baseline: GEL 773,000 allocated p.a. Indicator 2.2: 159% increase Fund / State (GEL210 059,87 for DV) Planned State Fund’s budget by year: 2012 - 210 budget. Target: 10-20% 059,87GEL; 2013 - 287 310,92GEL; 2014 - 342 368,27GEL; 509 472,51GEL target has been met and even surpassed.
Page 40 of 58 Output 2.1 National laws and policies on domestic violence improved in line with international commitments (DEVAW
CEDAW, Beijing Platform for Action) Indicator 2.1.1, Yes, DV NAP 2013-2015 2.1.1 N17/07/01 Indicator 2.1.1 DV NAP for 2013-2015 adopted and signed by the President of Decree of the President of adopted by 2013 with implementation Georgia. Completed Georgia on 17 July 2013 mechanism and budget (Yes/No) Target has been met. on the approval of the DV NAP 2013-2015 Baseline: DV NAP for 2013-2015 not elaborated (2011) Indicator 2.1.2 Yes, the package of Planned Target: Yes legislative amendments to DVL and related legislation adopted by the Parliament of Indicator 2.1.2 Recommendations for Georgia in October 2014. 2.1.2 External evaluation amending DV law drafted (in line with Target has been met. report; the recommendations under the DV NAP DV NAP 2011-2012 2011-2012 monitoring report and the monitoring report; monitoring report on the enforcement of Georgian legislative herald restrictive and protective orders) and submitted to Parliament of Georgia (Yes/No) Baseline: Recommendations for amending
DV law not drafted
Planned Target: Yes Activity 2.1.1 Capacity of the DV Indicator 2.1.1 b): Equipment and Indicator 2.1.2: Partially completed. The 2.1.1 Procurement and Council developed to effectively facilities provided to the DV Council to DV Council has been re-established and is handover documentation coordinate implementation and facilitate effectively coordinate implementation and operational, however lacks capacity to monitoring of national laws and policies Indicator 2.1.1 a): Ongoing onfac idolitmeatest monic vioitoringlence of national laws and coordinate implementation and facilitate policies on DV monitoring of national laws and policies on Indicator 2.1.1 a): Improved coordination DV due to the absence of a secretariat. of the implementation of national laws and policies on DV by the DV Council
Page 41 of 58 Activity 2.1.2 a) Improved implementation and monitoring of the DV NAP 2011-2012 b) informed and participatory process of the drafting of the DV NAP 2013-2014 Indicator 2.1.2 a): Completed, 70% of the 2.1.2 a): N17/07/01 Indicator 2.1.2 a): DV NAP 2011- NAP 2011-2012 monitoring Decree of the President of 2012 monitoring report developed and recommendations incorporated in the draft Georgia on 17 July 2013 its recommendations considered in the DV NAP 2013-2015. Target has been met on the approval of the DV DV NAP 2013-2015 NAP 2013-2015 Indicator 2.1.2 b): Completed, 70% of recommendations incorporated in the DV 2.1.2 b): N17/07/01 NAP 2013-2015 signed by the President of Decree of the President of Indicator 2.1.2 b): DV NAP 2013- Georgia on 17 July, 2013. Target has been Georgia on 17 July 2013 2015 drafted through a participatory met on the approval of the DV process incorporating NAP 2013-2015 and recommendations of the DV NAP Monitoring report on the 2011-2012 monitoring report and implementation of the DV Isubmindicatttedor to the 2.1. G3:oG fTorec ahnicpproaval l and Indicator 2.1.3.: Completed, package of 2.1.3NAP 2011 Georgian-2012 legislative fin ancial support provided to the DV legislative amendments to DVL and related herald Coun cil to carry out analysis and legislation adopted by the Parliament of prepare needed amendments to the Georgia in October 2014; DV victim status DVL and relevant policies (NRM, DV granting procedure drafted and adopted by Victim status granting, data collection the DV Council in December 2014. and analysis in the field of DV etc.) Target has been met
Activity 2.1.4 Training on Results Based Management and Monitoring and Evaluation provided to the national partners
Indicator 2.1.4: Training on RBM and Indicator 2.1.4.: Completed. 2.1.4 External evaluation M&E conducted for national partners report Target: At least 2 trainings for at least 20 participants each
Page 42 of 58 Output 2.2 Capacity of key policy and service delivery institutions strengthened to promote and protect women's human rights to life free from violence, especially from DV Indicator 2.2.1: Four shelters functional and 2.2.1 External evaluation funded from the state budget (Tbilisi, Gori, Indicator 2.2.1 Three shelters for DV report. Periodic reports Kutaisi, Tsnori) by the implementing victims/survivors functional and funded Target has been met and even surpassed from the state budget by 2013 (Yes/No) partner and external evaluation report; Baseline: Two shelters for DV victims/survivors functional and funded from the state budget (2011) IPndlannicaetdor Ta 2.2.2rge tN: Yateions al concept on DV Indicator 2.2.2: Draft concept developed 2.2.2 External evaluation crisis centers developed and applied by Target has been met report; responsible party crisis centers by 2013 (Yes/No) progress reports; Baseline: No national concept on DV crisis centers exists (2011) Planned Target: Yes Indicator 2.2.3: Increased disclosure and Indicator 2.2.3 Evidence of positive response to the instances of DV. 20 times changes in capacity of core service (restrictive orders) and 203% (protective 2.2.3 External evaluation providers to respond to DV cases orders) report; MOIA; Supreme (Yes/No) Target has been met Court of Georgia Baseline: To be set by the inception capacity assessment Planned Target: Yes Indicator 2.2.4: Recommendations Indicator 2.2.4 Recommendations on developed and used by police, though not instructions for district and patrol police on formally approved by MOIA. response to DV cases developed and Target partially met submitted to MOIA for adoption (Yes/No) 2.2.4 MOIA;
Baseline: No formal instructions for district and patrol police exist for efficient response to DV (2011) Indicator 2.2.5: Draft concept on the social Planned Target: Yes workers’ role in DV response developed and under discussion with MoLHSA. Target Indicator 2.2.5 Decree on the status and partially met 2.2.5 MOLHSA mandate of social workers in relation to DV drafted and submitted to MoLHSA for adopt ion (Yes/No) Page 43 of 58 Baseline: MoLHSA procedures do not
Activity 2.2.1 Knowledge on DV 2.2.1 Formal communication among patrol and district police with the Police Academy strengthened and the Ministry of Internal Affairs; Periodic reports by Indicator 2.2.1 a): Curricula for future the responsible party and patrol and district police included in the Indicator 2.2.1. a) Completed external evaluation report regular training programme of the Target has been met
Police Academy (Yes/No) Target: Yes
Indicator 2.2.1 b): Number of district Indicator 2.2.1.b) Completed, in total, up and patrol police officers trained on DV to 1,010 future and acting police officers issues have been trained Target: At least 300 police officers Target has been met and even surpassed trained
Activity 2.2.2 Knowledge of judges, 2.2.2 Formal communication lawyers and prosecutors on DV with the HSOJ; Formal strengthened. communication with the GBA; Formal communication Indicator 2.2.2 a): DV curriculum for Indicator 2.2.2. a) Completed, DV with the CPOG. judges developed and included in the curriculum for the HSOJ designed, tested, regular training programme of the and finalized.
HSOJ Indicator 2.2.2. b) Completed, DV curriculum for lawyers developed and included in the regular training programme Indicator 2.2.2 b): DV curriculum for of the mandatory CLE programme of the lawyers developed and included in the GBA with 7 credits; 3 TOT sessions regular training programme of the CLE conducted and trainers selected and 645 programme of the GBA lawyers trained.
Indicator 2.2.2. c) Completed, DV curriculum for prosecutors developed and finalized. In total, 72 prosecutors trained
Indicator 2.2.2 c): DV curriculum for prose cutors developed and included in Page 44 of 58 the regular training programme of the Training Centre for Justice Activity 2.2.3 One additional shelter 2.2.3 Quality control report by
established by the State Fund for DV an independent expert and victims and unified electronic database State Fund budget; of DV victims/survivors Formal communication with using shelter services created the State Fund and non-state run shelters on the launch of Indicator 2.2.3 a): A new DV shelter Indicator 2.2.3. a) Completed, the third the electronic database and established and operational with funding DV shelter in Kutaisi functional and fourth final report by UN Women ensured through the State Budget from shelter in Tsnori to be launched in 2016. including statistics in the 2013 in a target region of the programme 159% increase in budget Target has been database met
Indicator 2.2.3. b) Completed, unified electronic database of DV victims/survivors Indicator 2.2.3 b): Unified electronic developed and operational linked with the database of DV victims/survivors MoLHSA general case management system. operational and used by state and non- state Target has been met run shelters
Activity 2.2.4 Capacity of the PDO 2.2.4 External evaluation Center for Children and Women's report; Formal Rights strengthened to provide legal communication with the
assistance to GBV and DV victims and PDO and the DV Council monitor the enforcement of restrictive on the submission of the and protective orders report to the DV Council including data from the Indicator 2.2.4 a): Methodology for report monitoring of the enforcement of Indicator 2.2.4 a) Target has been met restrictive and protective orders
developed and applied. Indicator 2.2.4 b) Completed and presented Indicator 2.2.4 b): Monitoring report to stakeholders, informed drafting of on the enforcement of the restrictive legislative amendments. Target has been and protective orders prepared based on met the methodology by the Center and submitted to the DV Council
Page 45 of 58 Activity 2.2.5 Support provided to the 2.2.5 TOR of the working MoLHSA to define status and mandate group of social workers vis-à-vis combating and minutes of the working domestic violence group meetings; Minutes of the working group meetings and formal Indicator 2.2.5 a): A joint working Indicator 2.2.5 a) Completed communication with the group established with the MoLHSA MoLHSA on the submission and the Association of the Social of the draft concept note Workers of Georgia to define status and mandate of social workers in relation to DV. Indicator 2.2.5. b) Completed Indicator 2.2.5 b): A draft concept note defining status and mandate of the social workers vis-à-vis combatting DV developed through a participatory process. Activity 2.2.6 A model crisis center Periodic reports of the for the victims/survivors of DV and a implementing model for the provision of socio- partner; economic rehabilitation for the DV Periodic reports of the victims/survivors established under the implementing partner and overall supervision of the State Fund. formal communication with
the State Fund on the Indicator 2.2.6 a): A model crisis Indicator 2.2.6. a) Completed submission of the concept. center for the DV victims/survivors (December 2012) Monitoring report on the established and operational in line with enforcement of the restrictive local experience and international best and protective orders. practices.
Page 46 of 58 Output 2.3 Public awareness raised to support prevention and disclosure of the instances of GBV and DV
Indicator 2.3 a): Increase in public Indicator 2.3. a) Completed. According to 2.3 UNFPA/ACT National awareness of the DV law and relevant the UNJP mid-term Research on Domestic services in Tbilisi and target regions survey (2013) on perceptions and awareness Violence against Women In above the baseline by 2013; of DV, 53.8% of respondents are aware of Georgia (2009), mid-term Baseline: Not available the DV nation-wide hotline, 39,8% are survey on the perceptions Planned Target: 10-20% increase aware of the DV shelters, while 77% and awareness of DV and claimed to be aware of the existence of the existing services in 2013.
DV law.
Indicator 2.3. b) 53.3% increase According Indicator 2.3 b): Positive change in to the UNFPA/ACT National Research on societal attitudes towards zero tolerance Domestic Violence against Women In to DV in Tbilisi and target regions above Georgia (2009), 78.3% believe DV is a the baseline by 2013 family matter and 34.1% believe that To be set by the baseline survey violence in the family can be justified, Planned Target: 10-20% increase while according to the UNJP mid-term survey (2013), only 25% believe DV is a family matter, while 69% believe DV is a crime and 17% believe it can be justified in certain cases. Target has been met and even surpassed.
Page 47 of 58 Activity 2.3.1 Communications 2.3.1 Communications strategy on public awareness activities campaign report; to popularize services established and Media tracking reports; promote zero tolerance towards GBV Social media tracking reports. and DV developed and implemented
Indicator 2.3.1: Number of media Indicator 2.3.1: Up to 700 media reports: coverages of the problem of DV Target has been met and even surpassed stimulated the project p.a. Baseline: Up to 20 media coverages (2010) Planned Target: At least 40 coverage
Activity 2.3.2 General public 2.3.2 Periodic reports of the awareness campaign conducted to state fund; State fund promote existing services for the admission statistics and hotline victims/survivors of DV statistics;
Indicator 2.3.2 a): Number of reported Indicator 2.3.2 a) Total 4,996 calls on the cases of DV registered in the State hotline and 546 DV victims/survivors served Fund shelters and hotline Baseline: 723 Target has been met and even surpassed calls on the hotline and 48 victims served (June 2011) Planned Target: At least 1000 cases Indicator 2.3.2 b) 93% of services users Indicator 2.3.2 b): Proportion of received information on the services through service users who received information awareness raising efforts (in particular, on the services through awareness television and public service raising efforts announcements) Baseline: 80% of services users Target has been met and even surpassed received information on the services through awareness raising efforts Planned Target: At least 80-90%
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Activity 2.3.3 Public awareness 2.3.3a) Media monitoring initiatives carried out to promote zero report tolerance towards DV in partnership
with celebrities from the fields of sport and arts Indicator 2.3.3 a): Up to 700 media Indicator 2.3.3 a): Number of media reports. coverages promoting zero tolerance Target has been met and even surpassed
towards DV Baseline: Up to 10 media coverages (2010)
Planned Target: At least 20 coverages
Indicator 2.3.3 b): Number of media Indicator 2.3.3 b): Up to 700 media 2.3.3b) Media monitoring coverages promoting existing services reports. report for the DV victims/survivors Baseline: Up to 10 media coverages Target has been met and even surpassed (2010) Planned Target: At least 20 coverages Outcome 3 Gender Equality advanced by Data of the Parliament of creating enabling environment to realize Georgia, CEDAW reports Sexual and Reproductive Rights of population In progress Indicator: the status of SRH&RR of population are reflected in CEDAW reports and demonstrate improvements; (Yes/No) Baseline: Planned Target: Yes Output 3.1 Members of the Gender Equality Council (GEC), Parliamentary All-Party Group on MDGs and the Parliamentary Committee on Health and Social Affairs are better prepared to integrate SRH&R and Gender Equality in Parliament data
Page 49 of 58 the Population policies and frameworks with particular focus on Youth; UNJP Report/attendance Indicator 3.1: National Youth Policy and lists/ Program Evaluation Indicator 3. 1: Youth policy, integrating Action Plan integrating SRH&R and gender Report SRH&R and gender, developed (Yes/No) has been developed Baseline: No (as of March, 2011)
Indicator 3.1.1: 115 parliamentary staffers Indicator 3.1.1 # of policy-makers and and MPs trained staffers of the Parliament trained on integration of Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights (SRH&R) and Gender Equality into the policies and national development frameworks Baseline: 0 (as of March, 2011) Planned Target: At least 25 policy- makers and staffers Indicator 3.1.2: 2 National Forums and 7 local forums (regional) conducted Indicator 3.1.2: # of Regional multi- sectoral forums conducted to promote gender-sensitive Youth policies’ formulation and implementation at the Indicator 3.1.3: 1 research on Gender- national level Biases Sex Selection launched Baseline: 0 (as of March, 2011) 1 Research on Men and Gender Relations Planned Target: 2 forums conducted launched
Indicator 3.1.3 # of qualitative researches on SRH&R, gender, youth undertaken, findings disseminated;
Page 50 of 58 Output 3.2 Strengthened SRH&R Due to the ongoing legislative UNJP Report/attendance strategies and services to address health amendments prompted by the lists/ Program Evaluation system response to DV ratification of Istanbul Report Indicator 3.2. Three medical facilities have Convention, the adoption of the Indicator 3.2: # of health facilities, been involved for testing the training guideline is pending. Major involved in the DV response mechanisms module prepared for healthcare response to legislative acts regulating the by applying SRH service Guideline/s and DV/GBV field will undergo substantial Protocol/s integrating the response to DV changes that should be also Baseline: 0 (as of March, 2011) depicted in the guideline. Target: at least 15 health facilities Therefore, the trainings have been conducted only for testing Indicator 3.2.1: Recommendations on the modules and the guideline Indicator 3.2.1. SRH service Guideline/s Revealing, Referring, and Documenting the and to integrate medical and Protocol/s integrating the response to Cases of Physical, Sexual and professionals insight into the DV developed (Yes/No) Psychological Violence against Women final documents. Subsequently, Baseline: No (as of March, 2011) (Recommendations) has been drafted and the integration of the module in Planned Target: Yes submitted to the representatives of the post-graduate education MOLSHA seems reasonable only after the finalization of the legislative amendments. Indicator 3.2.2: % of RH service Indicator 3.2.2: 27 medical professionals providers - training participants prepared were trained at an initial stage of testing the to apply the SRH service Guideline/s and training module Protocol/s integrating the response to DV in practice; Baseline: 0 (as of March, 2011) Target: at least 95% of training participants Indicator. 3.2.3. The training module is prepared that will be adapted for the students in Phase II of the Programme Indicator 3.2.3: DV issues are integrated into the post-graduate education of RH service providers (Yes/No) Baseline: No (as of March, 2011) Output 3.3 Gender Equality and SRH&R UNJP Report/attendance promoted through an enabling lists/ Program Evaluation sociocultural environment Report
Page 51 of 58 Indicator 3.3: The set of indicators related Pre-post Tests of the to attitudes and opinions toward family trainings and Reproductive roles Baseline: RH Survey 2010 data (will be Media monitoring reports available in Sept, 2011) (UNFPA news)
Indicator 3.3: The index of gender values in Georgia for men and women Baseline: Men:12.7; Women: 13.6 (Gender and Generations Survey in Georgia - II Wave, 2010) Indicator 3.3.1. Approximately 50% knowledge increase on gender equality and Indicator 3.3 1: % of knowledge increase SRH&RR among trained youth based on of training participants (men, youth) on pre and post training questioners’ gender equality and SRH&R concepts assessments. Baseline: 0 Approximately 35% knowledge increase on gender equality and SRH&RR among trained men based on pre and post training questioners’ assessments.
Indicator 3.3.2. In total reached 29,674 young people reached
Indicator 3.3.2 # of Youth (both sexes) Peer Education Campaign - 420 people reached out by educational activities and trained, including 30 vulnerable youth; annual Youth Festivals in target regions Youth National Forum(s) – 685 young Baseline: Up to 2,000 young people people participated; reached in 2010 country-wide Men Talking to Men trainings – 144 Target: At least 3,000 youth reached participants; annually Journalists Training – 116 journalists trained; My Rights – 314 school children and 110 teachers and parents reached; Small Grants – 16,830 beneficiaries (directly and indirectly reached) Youth Festival – 2,000 participant Radio Programmes – 165 radio
Page 52 of 58 Programmes aired; Estimated number of young population reached out by IEC activities: at least 9,000
Indicator 3.3.3: 186 media coverage in the Indicator 3.3.3: # of media coverage reporting period (including social media) on SRH&R and Gender issues Baseline: up to 15 media coverage in 2010 Target: at least 25 media coverage annually
Page 53 of 58 iii) Evaluation, Best Practices and Lessons Learned
The Evaluation of the UN Joint Programme to Enhance Gender Equality in Georgia was commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UN Women and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Indevelop Sweden AB (http://www.indevelop.se/) undertook the evaluation between December 2014 and March 2015. It was finalised in May 2015 based on the feedback from the participating organizations. (Please see the Annex 2 - Final Evaluation Report)
While serving both accountability and learning purposes, the main focus of the evaluation was learning: considering that there was an agreement, in principle, that Sweden will fund a second phase of the programme, the UNJP wished to inform the design of this next phase through an outside analysis and discussion of lessons learned of the current phase of implementation. The Terms of Reference (ToR) for the evaluation specified two main directions of inquiry: first, the evaluation to assess the level of the achievement of the UNJP’s stipulated objectives; second, to assess the success of the joint programme model of delivery.
With regards to the first direction of inquiry, i.e. the level of achievement of the UNJP’s objectives, the evaluators come to the following conclusions:
The UNJP remains highly relevant for the context of Georgia—women’s access to participation in politics and the labor market remains limited, and the pay gap between men and women significant; 2014 has seen a record number of femicides; awareness on sexual and reproductive health and rights is low and subject to taboo; and sex selective abortions and early marriages present considerable problems affecting women, in particular in rural locations and among religious minorities.
The UNJP’s human rights-based approach and pursuit of working with all national/central level institutions and actors that have a stake in the gender equality and anti-domestic violence agenda is clear - the programme has identified and engaged with relevant, highly competent partners to deliver services at the local level for the purpose of achieving the objectives of this phase of the programme. The prime target groups identified to benefit from the UNJP—Georgian society as a whole, but women in particular—are relevant; while, work with ethnic, religious and sexual minorities as stipulated in the programme document appears to have been undertaken, although somewhat unsystematically. Some tensions would seem to exist with regards to the choice of the Georgian Patriarchy; while it is a relevant vector for reaching out to a wide number of people, as an institution, it could be said to actually oppose the gender equality agenda in Georgia.
With regards to effectiveness, the rationale underpinning the programme is sound where it makes the causal link between gender inequality; the lack of economic and political empowerment; domestic violence; and the lack of realization of sexual and reproductive rights. However, the overall theory of change, as well as the rationale for the joint approach should have been made more explicit, together with a clearer shared understanding between the agencies as well as among national partners on why a joint approach would be more effective than three individual projects.
These key results include a number that had not been initially planned for, but where the UNJP used opportunities emerging from specific activities, such as the work with the Ministry of Education on the development of a curriculum on sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as working on the elimination of gender stereotypes in textbooks across subjects.
The effectiveness of the program’s pilot approach within the sub-components is marred by a number of problems. For example for the sub-component led by UNDP, the evaluators were unable to independently
Page 54 of 58 corroborate/triangulate that the work on gender-based budgeting will go beyond the municipalities concerned, although the Ministry of Finance appears to have formally agreed to a set of activities as part of the ongoing, 2014-2016 National Action Plan on Gender Equality. UN Women’s work with the establishment of crisis centers for victims of domestic violence has demonstrated the need for such centers as an emergency point of call for affected women; however, without UNJP and the resources it offers this model approach is not being replicated by the state structures. In contrast, the UNFPA pilot approach pursued through the “My Rights” campaign has proved successful in advocating with the Ministry of Education for the need for the inclusion of sexual and reproductive health and rights into the school curriculum.
In terms of efficiency, the evaluators consider that most of the individual outputs that they have been able to study in more detail represent value-for-money; there is, however, some scope for being more strategic about some outputs, such as trainings for journalists - something that UNJP is now planning for a future phase of the programme where the three agencies will work together on the development of joint curricula for journalist training institutions in six universities across Georgia. There are also important lessons learned on the cost of awareness raising activities, which, in case of the UNDP campaign, have considerably exceeded the initial forecasts. The need to finance regional activities in the framework of the South Caucasus Youth Forum from the budget of this programme remains questionable as it would seem to be in tension with Swedish development cooperation priorities which do not extend, at present, to Azerbaijan and Armenia.
With regards to sustainability, the evaluators have found convincing evidence to suggest that the legal and policy framework is likely to remain in place, as well as the institutions that have been created including as a result of the UNJP and previous advocacy work of the UN agencies. Prospects of sustainability are also high where the programme has worked on institutionalizing training to become part of training institutions’ curricula; and while work with the Ministry of Education on removing gender stereotypes from textbooks and on introducing education on sexual and reproductive health and rights as part of the mainstream curriculum is at its early stages, the results of this work also have the potential to become sustainable.
At the same time, sustainability is also the greatest point of concern for the results achieved by the UNJP in this phase of the programme, and across all sub-components. Staff turnover at all levels of government continues to be a concern beyond the UNJP’s control. The level of dependency of all stakeholders involved on the resources provided through UNJP is considerable. For example, the parliamentary Gender Equality Council (one of the key interlocutors of UNDP) relies heavily on day-to-day operational level support from the programme, as does the Inter-Agency Domestic Violence Council of the government of Georgia (UN Women and UNFPA counterparts). The fulfilment of strategic and policy documents on gender equality, such as the 2014-2016 National Action Plan on Gender Equality, hinges on the government making available resources for its implementation. And while some progress has been made on the state’s financing of key service delivery structures for the victims of domestic violence (4 out of 5 shelters for victims of domestic violence are now financed by the state), the dependence of other parts of the service delivery system on the resources provided by the programme and other international donors is alarming. The evaluators are also concerned by the fact that there is a clear consensus from stakeholders that the future of the gender equality agenda in Georgia is under threat should the UN not carry this issue forward.
With regards to the second direction of enquiry, i.e. the merits of the joint approach, the evaluators have encountered surprisingly scarce evidence from stakeholders outside the UN staff involved that the programme is recognized as an effort involving three agencies in one joint programmatic framework working on inter- related concerns to advance the gender equality agenda in Georgia. UN agency staff themselves seem to have taken some time to buy into the joint programme approach, and there has been anecdotal evidence that the framework has resulted in the loss of efficiency and flexibility in operations. The evaluators note that even
Page 55 of 58 among participating staff there is a certain lack of clarity on how the three components really form a single logical whole.
The evaluators have identified evidence of the three agencies working together, such as the 2014 – 2016 National Action Plan on Gender Equality, which incorporates measures from across the UNJP’s sub- components. UNDP, UNFPA, and UN Women have also joined forces for the training of judges, as well as the training of journalists and the development of gender sensitive and ethical reporting curriculum for BA journalism programs of six Georgian universities. Successful joint advocacy for a Gender Equality function within the government of Georgia is another case in point, as is advocacy for the establishment of a Gender Equality Department inside the Public Defender’s Office.
However, the evaluators have also identified a number of instances where the components could have worked together better; these include exploring how the contact with grassroots groups in the pilot regions could be maximized to advance the economic and political empowerment, and the anti-domestic violence agendas; the combination of research efforts; and joint monitoring and evaluation to increase efficiency and coherence of programme delivery.
Recommendations to the UNJP participating agencies:
1. A future UNJP should be more explicit on the theory of change bringing the components together, and the potential of the joint approach needs to be spelled out clearer; all staff needs to buy into the joint approach. As part of building domestic ownership and the capacity of the national institutions participating in the Steering Committee, the next UNJP needs to involve the Georgian counterparts actively into the programme design phase, including in the formulation of the theory of change underpinning the programme. 2. There needs to be a clearer strategic approach on how to involve ethnic and religious minorities in a future UNJP and how to account for their involvement beyond a formal commitment in the Programme Document; 3. A future UNJP should make clear its position on “gender”, and be clear on how it focuses explicitly on certain target groups, while pursuing the work with other groups in a more implicit manner, for example the work with the LGBT community; 4. The “pilot approach” to outputs and activities within outputs needs to be more clearly thought through. Guiding parameters have to be whether and how pilots created are really of a critical scale and are likely to generate sufficient ownership to serve as examples for replication country-wide; 5. A future project should consider consolidation of activities as opposed to the currently considered extension to other regions of Georgia. This concerns in particular the economic empowerment activities within the UNDP sub-component of the UNJP. The UN should explore where they can best add value, which might be normative concerns such as property rights issues that affect women, or advocacy for gender mainstreaming in existing national programs for economic development, including such programs that provide access to credit for women. Existing networks should be used to spread awareness about and to create demand for the opportunities available. The economic empowerment activities need to be examined critically to avoid gender stereotyping. 6. All sub-components must work towards diminishing the dependence of their partners, including NGOs that are providing services, on UNJP resources. UN Women in particular is aware that it needs to continue its advocacy work to ensure that UNJP resources do no continue to fund services that should be paid out of the state budget; 7. With limited resources available, all parts of the UNJP should be strategic, and the need to fund individual events and one-off activities should be re-appraised in a future phase of the programme;
Page 56 of 58 8. UNJP should review its partnerships and open up to potentially new domestic actors in Georgia who could carry the gender equality debate forward independently of the UN; 9. Given that the groundwork is laid with regards to data collection on instances of domestic violence, the UNJP should build the authorities’ capacities to use this data to inform the design of domestic responses and policies; 10. Consider making aspects of the UNJP more efficient, for example through the introduction of a joint monitoring and evaluation function, which should be included in the funding proposal for the next phase of the programme. Monitoring and evaluation should involve the collection of evidence on key programme assumptions, such as that greater awareness indeed leads to increased realization of the individual’s rights; 11. The UNJP should consider a more integrated approach to reporting, and which would consolidate reflection (and learning) on the achievements at programme level, as opposed to the current reporting at sub-component level.
The final evaluation of the UN Joint Programme to Enhance Gender Equality in Georgia (UNJP) provided a good assessment of the strategies used in the UN Joint Program to Enhance Gender Equality in Georgia. Strategies rated as successful continued to be applied in the UNJP taking into account all of the recommendations provided in the final evaluation report.
Specifically, the recommendations have been taken into consideration in drafting the project document for the UN Joint Project for Gender Equality in Georgia, Phase II – a five-year continuation of the UNJP also implemented by UNDP, UN Women and UNFPA which was launched in November 2015. (Please see the Annex 3 on Management Response) iv) A Specific Story (Optional)
Problem / Challenge faced: UNJP participating organizations have invested substantial efforts in the public awareness activities. Development of messages, design of campaigns and roll-out of information is partially dependent on the knowledge and awareness of the media outlets. Lack of knowledge of journalists on gender sensitive reporting pose important obstacle to proper dissemination of public awareness raising messages.
Programme Interventions: UNJP participating organizations conducted numerous trainings on sensitive reporting at different times. In 2014 the three agencies united forces and held a joint workshop on gender equality, domestic violence, reproductive health rights and other relevant topics for journalists from the capital and different regions of Georgia.
Result (if applicable):
Page 57 of 58 Lessons Learned: As a result of the training, the Participating Organizations agreed that such ad hoc interventions with the media do not provide the required change in the quality of reporting, especially from gender perspective. Surely, these courses did steer several individual journalists to specialize on gender issues. However, the PUNOs came to the conclusion that more systemic approach would better benefit making reporting more sensitive. Therefore, the program started negotiations with the Journalistic Departments of several Georgian universities on introducing sensitive reporting course in the curriculum.
Development of the course will be undertaken under the follow-up UNJP Phase II.
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